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64Ti.CoM;Kiis.>,| HOUSE OK KEl'RKSKNTATl VK8 j ^''^' 

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Due I'M KM' 
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ADDRESSES 

or 

PRESIDENT WILSON 

n 

JANUARY 27— FEBRUARY 3, 1916 



NEW YORK, JANUARY 27 

PITTSBURGH, JANUARY 29 

CLEVELAND, JANUARY 29 

MILWAUKEE, JANUARY 31 

CHICAGO, JANUARY 31 
DES MOINES, FEBRUARY 1 

TOPEKA, FEBRUARY 2 

KANSAS CITY, FEBRUARY 2 

ST. LOUIS, FEBRUARY 3 



wM 



■H*} 



PRESENTED BY MR. lOSTER 
February 3, iyi6. — Ordered to be printed 



WASHLSGTO.N 

GOVL.UN.ML.\T I'UlNilNG OlllCli 

1916 



fc. 7&G, 



In the House or Eepresentatives, 

Februari/ S, 1916. 
Ordered., That the speeches of President Wilson on tri^^ through 
Central West be printed as a House document. 
2 



D. Of D. 
MAR 28 1916 



u 

^ 



^ 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON 

JANLAKY 27 TO rtBlU'AUY 3. I'jlG. 



INTERDEXOMIXATIOXAL MEETING AT AEOLIAN HALL, NEW YORK 
CITY, JANUARY 27, 1916. 

Mv. Chairman and Okntlemen : You have paid me a great honor 
to-(hiy, and I want to say liow deeply and from the heart I appre- 
ciate it. I feel that you have unduly honored me as a man and 
that most of the things you have been pleased to say can be truly 
said of me only as a representative of the great i^eople wiiom we all 
love. Because in my ctTorts for j^eace I have been conscious of rep- 
resenting the spirit of America and no private convictions merely of 
m^' own. It is hard to hold the balance even, where so many pas- 
sions are involved, but I have known that in their heaits and by 
their puri)ose the people of America were seeking to hold the balance 
even. The neutrality of the United States has not been a merely 
foi-nial matter. It has been a matter of conviction and of the heart, 
nnd in reflecting upon peace and the means of maintaining it. one 
is obliged to seaich for the foundations of peace. I can find no 
other foundation for peace than is laid in justice without aggiession. 
If you wish to be just and insist upon being justly treated and have 
no motive of covetousness or aggression, I believe you stand upon 
the (mly firm foundations which will sustain peace. 

The greatest thing in the world, the greatest force in the wo"ld, is 
character, and I believe that chaiacter can be expressed uj^on a 
national scale and by a nation: that every act of a nation, at any 
rate of a nation which opens its counsels to the voice of the jieople 
themselves, expresses its character in its attitude toward its own 
alTaii'S and in its attitude toward the afTaii's of other nations. 
America has always sto( d resolutely and absolutely for the right of 
every jieople to detei'mine its own destiny and its own affairs. I am 
so absolute a disciple of that doctrine that I am ready to do that 
thing and observe that jirinciple in dealing with the troubled affairs 
of our distressed neighbor to (he south. And similarly it is the 
passion of America to be i)ermitted to live her own life accoi'ding to 
her own pi'MicipIe. The only thing that she pi'ofoiuidly ivsents. or 
•will evei" profoundly resent, is having her liie and freedom inter- 
feied >vith. Those aie the teims of sel ""-respect upon whieh we 
deal with one another as individuals, and those are the terms of 
self-resj)ect upon which nations deal with one anither. Because 
character is determined, at any rate "is manifested, by what an in- 
dividual and a nation mo^ (piickly respond to. I have never found 
audiences in America r^3onding to any doctrine or pur]-)ose of 

3 



4 JLDDRESSES OP PEESIDENT WILSON. 

aggression, but I have found them responding instantly, as the in- 
strument responds to the hand of the musician, to every sentiment of 
justice and every ideal of liberty and every purpose of freedom. 

America has not grown cold with regard to the great things for 
Avhich she created a (lovernment and a Nation, and these are the only 
things that stir her passion; and surely it is a handsome and elevated 
l^assion, a disinterested passion, because at its heart dwells the in- 
terest of every man and every woman within her confines. There is 
a further foundation for peace additional to this conception of justice 
and of fairness to others. That is our internal attitude toward each 
other. America has been hospital in an unprecedented degree to- 
ward all nations, all races, all creeds. She has seemed almost to 
desire to be made up of all the stocks and influenced by all the 
thoughts of the wide world. She has seemed to realize that she 
could be fertile only if every great impulse were planted amongst 
her. So she has set for herself in this process, which is still un- 
finished, of uniting and amalgamating these things, the problem of 
making disparate things live together in peace and accommodation 
and harmony. The peace of America depends upon the attitude 
of the different elements of race and thought of which she is made 
up toward one another. 

I have been deeply disturbed, gentlemen, I think every thoughtful 
American has been deeply disturbed, at the evidence afforded in re- 
cent days of the recrudescence of religious antagonisms in this coun- 
try. That is a very dangerous thing which cuts at the very root of the 
American sjjirit. If men do not love one another, they can not love 
peace. If men are intolerant of one another they Avill be intolerant 
of the processes of peace, which are the })rocesses of accommodation. 
" Live and let live " is a very homely phrase, and yet it is the basis of 
social existence. I have neighbors \\'hose manners and opinions I 
would very much like to alter, but I entertain a suspicion that they 
would in turn very much like to alter mine, and I am afraid that if 
I began the process in their direction they might insist upon it in 
mine; and upon reflection as 1 grow older I agree to live and let live. 
Birrell says somewhere, " The child beats its nurse and cries for the 
moon; the old man sips his gruel humbly and thanks God that no- 
body beats him." I have not yet quite reached that point of humility, 
and I always accept, perhaps by some impulse of my native blood, the 
invitation to a fight; but I hope I always conduct the fight in knightly 
fashion. I hope I do not traduce my antagonists. I hope that I 
fight them with the purpose and intention of converting them, and I 
know that I wish that the best argument and the right purpose shall 
prevail. It is not a case of knock down and drag out ; it is a case of 
putting up the best reason v.hy your own side should survive. These 
franknesses of controversy, these knightly equalities of condition in 
the fight, are the necessary conditions precedent to peace. Peace 
does not mean inaction. There may be infinite activity; there may 
be almost violent activity in the midst of peace. 

Peace dwells, after all, in the character and in tlie heart, and that 
is where peace is rooted in this blessed comitry of ours. It is rooted 
in the hearts of the people. The only place where tinder lies, and 
the spark may kindle a flame, is where still deeper things lie which 
they love, the jirinciples and independence of their own life. Let 
no man dro^) fire there. Because peace is inconsistent with the loss 



ADDRESSIivS OF IMIKSIDKNT WILSON. 5 

of self-rcvspect. Moi'c than tli:il, peace is iiuoiisi.stonL willi the abaii- 
donment of i)riiu'i])le. 

But these things aie not to he thoiiLrht of. 'I'hese thiii«?s, I pray 
God. may nev^er l)e ehallePiijech 1 iiu'iilion them merely that we may 
frankly lemind each other of the conditions under which we live. 
^^'e helieve in |)eace, but we believe also in justice and righteousness 
and lii)erty, ami peace can not subsisl without these. In what you 
ha\e too i^enerously i)raise{l me for. (hcrcd'ore, <>;entlemen. 1 have 
conceived myself merely as the spokesman ol" yourselves and of all 
other Americans who. like yourselves, aie thoughtful of the welfare 
and ideals of America. These are very responsible days. I do not 
see how any man dares utter anythinj.? but the truth in this tense 
atmosphere. I do not see how any man can in conscience display 
narrow or partisan passion. Wc are all of one spiritual kith and kin, 
anil a o;reat family is buildino- up here which I believe in my heart 
will set an example to the world of those thin<;s which elevate and 
purify and stren*>then mankind. 



SEVENTH ANNUAL DINNER OF THE RAILWAY BUSINE.SS ASSO- 
CIATION, AT THE WALDORF ASTORIA, NEW YORK CITY, JANU- 
ARY 27, 1916. 

Mr. ToASTiMASTEK, Ladies, axd Gentlemkx: The exactions of my 
official duties have recently been so great that it has been \ery seldom 
indeed that I could give myself so great a pleasure as that which I 
am enjoying to-night. It is a great pleasure to come and be greeted 
in such generous fashion by men so thoughtful as yourselves and so 
deeply engaged in some of the most important undertakings of the 
Nation, and I consider it a privilege to be permitted to lay before you 
some of the things to which we ought to give our most careful and 
deliberate consideration. 

The question, it seems to me, which most tlemands clarification just 
now is the question to which your toastmaster has referred, the ques- 
tion of ])repa ration for national defense. I say that it stands in need 
of clarification because it has been deeply clouded by passion and 
prejudice. It is very singular that a question the elements of which 
are so simple and so obvious should have been so beclouded by the 
discussion of men of high motive, men of pui'pose as handsome as 
any of us may claim and yet apj^arently incapable of divesting them- 
selves of that soi't of pi-ovincialism which consists in thinking the 
contents of their own mind to be the contents of the mind of the 
world. For. gentlemen, while America is a very great Nation, while 
America contains every element of fine force and accomplisluuent, 
America does not constitute the major part of the world. We live in 
a world which we iV'(\ not make, which we can not alter, which we can 
not think into a different condition from that which actually exists. 
It would be a hopeless piece of jirovincialism to supjiose that because 
we think differently fi'om the I'ost of the woi-ld we are at libei'ty to 
assume that the rest of the world will permit us to enjoy that thought 
without disturbance. 

It is a surprisinir circumstnnce, also, that men should allow ])nrti- 
san feeling or personal ambition to creep into the discussion of this 



6 ADDEESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

fundamental thing. How can Americans differ about the safety of 
America? I, for my part, am amliitious that America should do a 
greater and more diflicult tiling than the great nations on the other 
side of the Avater have done. In all the belligerent countries men 
without distinction of party have draAvn together to accomplish a 
successful prosecution of the war. Is it not a more difficult and a 
more desirable tiling that all Americans should put partisan pre- 
possessions aside and draw together for the successful prosecution 
of peace? I covet tliat distinction for America; and I believe that 
America is going to enjoy that distinction. Only the other day the 
leader of the Republican minority in the House of Representatives 
delivered a speech which showed that he was ready and, I take it for 
granted, that the men behind him were ready, to forget party lines 
in order that all men may act with a common mind and impulse 
for the service of the country: and I want upon this first public 
occasion to pay my tribute of respect and obligation to him. 

I find it very hard indeed to approach this subject without very 
deep emotion, gentlemen, because when we speak of America and the 
things that are to be conserved in her, does it not call a wonderful 
picture into your mind? America is young still; she is not yet even 
in the heydey of her development and power. Think of the great 
treasures of youth and energy and ideal purpose still to be drawn 
from the deep sources from which this Nation has always drawn its 
life. Think of the service which those forces can and must render to 
the rest of the world. Think of the position into which America 
has been drawn, almost in spite of herself, by the circumstances of 
the present duv. She alone is free to help find things wherever they 
show themselves in the world. She will be forced also, whether 
she will or not, in the decades immediately ahead of us, to furnish 
the world with its chief economic guidance and assistance. 

It is very fine to remember Avhat ideals will be back of that assist- 
ance. Economic assistance in itself is not necessarily handsome. It 
is a legitimate thing to make money, but it is not an ideal thing to 
make money. Money brings with it power which may be well or ill 
emplo3'ed, and it should be the pride of America always to employ 
her money to the highest purpose. Yet if we are drawn into the 
maelstrom that now surges across the water, swirls alike in the west- 
ern and eastern regions of the world, we shall not be permitted to 
keep a free hand to do the high things that we intend to do. It is 
necessary, therefore, that we should examine ourselves and see 
whether we can make certain that the tasks imposed upon us will be 
performed, well performed, and performed without interruption. 

America has been reluctant to match her wits with the rest of the 
world. When I face a body of men like this it is almost incredible 
to remember that only yesterday they were afraid to put their wits 
into free competition with the world. The best brains in the world 
afraid to match brains with the rest of the world. We have pre- 
ferred to be provincial. We have preferred to stand behind pro- 
tecting devices. And now, whether we will or no, we are thrust out 
to do on a scale never dreamed of by recent generations in America 
the business of the world. We can not any longer be a provincial 
Nation. 

Let no man dare to say, if he would speak the truth, that the question 
of prexiaration for national defense is a question of war or of peace. 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 7 

If tlierc is one passion more deep-seated in tiie hearts of oiii- fellow 
countrymen than another, it is tlie passion for peace. No ii.itioii in 
the work! evei- more instiiictivt'ly turned away from the thought of 
war than this Nation to which we heionfj^. Partly because in (ho 
plentitude of its power, in tiu' unrestrictetl aiea of its opportunities, 
it has found nothing to covet in the possession and |)ower of other 
nations. Ihere is no s|)irit of a^7j:ran(li/,ement in America. Theie is 
no desire on the pait of any thoughtful and conscientious Ameiican 
man to take one foot of territoi-y from any other nation in the world. 
1 myself share to the bottom of my heart that i)rof<;und love for 
peace. I have sou<;ht to maintain peace ajijainst vei-y great and some- 
times very unfair odds. I have had many a time to use every power 
that was in me to prevent such a catastrophe as war coming upon 
this cotuiti-y. It is not permissible for any man to say that anxiety 
for the defense of the Nation has in it the least tinge of desire for 
r» power that can l)e used to bi-ing on war. 

But, gentlemen, there is sonieihing that the Amei'ican people lovo 
better than they love jieace. The love the principles upon which 
their political life is founded. They arc ready at any tima to fight 
for the vindication of their character and of their honor. They will 
not at any time seek the contest, but they will at no time cravenly 
avoid it; because if there is one thing that the individual ought to 
fight for, and that the Nation ought to fight for, it is the integrity of 
its own convictions. We can not surrender our convictions. I would 
rather surrender territory than surrender those ideals which ai'c the 
stalf of life of the soul itself. 

And because we hold certain ideals we have thought that it was 
right that we should hold them for others as well as for ourselves. 
America has more than once given evidence of the generosity and 
disinterestedness of its love of liberty. It has been willing to fight 
for the liberty of others as well as for its own liberty. The world 
sneered when we set out upon the liberation of Cuba, but the world 
sneers no longer. The world now knows, what it was then loath to 
believe, that a nation can sacrifice its own interests and its own 
blood for the sake of the liberty and happiness of another peojile. 
AMiether by one process or another, we ha\e made ourselves in some 
sort the champions of free government and national sovereignty in 
both continents of this hemisphere; so that there are certain obliga- 
tions which every Amei-ican knows that we have undertaken. 

The first and primary obligation is the maintenance of the integ- 
rity of our own sovereignty. That goes as of course. There is also 
the nniintenance of our liberty to develop our political institutions 
without hindiance; and, last of all, there is the determination and 
the obligation to stand as t.he stiong brother of all those in this 
hemisphere who mean to maintain the same i)rincii)les anil follo^v the 
same ideals of liberty. 

May I venture to insert here a parenthesis? Have any of you 
thought of this? We have slowly, very slowly indeed, begun to win 
the confidence of the other States of the American hemisphei-e. If 
we should go into Mexico, do yon not know what would happen^ 
All the sympathies of the rest of America would look across the 
water and not northward to the great Republic wjiich we profess to 
represent; and do you not see the consequences that would ensue in 
every international relation? Have gentlemen who have rushed 



8 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

down to Washington to insist that we should go into Mexico re- 
flected upon the politics of the world? Nobody seriously supposes, 
gentlemen, that the United States needs to fear an invasion of its own 
territory. What America has to fear, if she has anything to fear, are 
indirect, round-about, flank movements upon her regnant position 
in the Western Hemisphere. Are we going to open those gates, or are 
we going to close them? For they are the gates to the hearts of our 
Amei'ican friends to the south of us and not gates to the ports merely. 
Win their spirits and you have won the only sort of leadership and 
the only sort of safety that America covets. We must all of us think 
from this time out in terms of the world, and must learn what it is 
that America has set out to maintain as a standard bearer for all 
those who love liberty and justice and righteousness in political 
action. 

But, gentlemen, we must find means to do this thing which are 
suitable to the time and suitable to our own ideals. Suitable to the 
time — does anybody understand the time? Perhaps Avhen you 
learned, as I dare say you did learn beforehand, that I was expecting 
to address j^ou on the subject of preparedness, you recalled the ad- 
dress which I made to Congress something more than a year ago, in 
which I said that this question of military preparedness was not a 
j^ressing question. But more than a j^ear has gone by since then and 
I would be ashamed if I had not learned something in 14 months. 
The minute I stop changing my mind with the change of all the 
circumstances of the world. I will he a back number. 

There is another thing about which I have changed my mind. A 
year ago I was not in favor of a tariff board, and I will tell you why. 
Then the only purpose of a tariff board was to keep alive an un- 
profitable controversy. If you set up any board of inquiry whose 
purpose it is to keep biisiness disturbed and to make it always an 
open question what you are going to do about the public policy of 
the Government, I am opposed to it; and the very men who were 
dinning it into our ears that Avhat business wanted was to be let 
alone were, many of them, men who were insisting that we should 
stir up a controversy which meant that we could not let business 
alone. There is a great deal more opinion vocal in this world than is 
consistent v,-ith logic. But the circumstances of the present time are 
these: There is going on in the world under our eyes an economic 
revolution. No man understands that revolution; no man has the 
elements of it clearly in his mind. No part of the business of legis- 
lation with regard to international trade can be undertaken until we 
do understand it ; and members of Congress are too busy, their duties 
are too maltifarious and distracting to make it i:)ossible within a 
sufficiently short space of time for them to master the change that is 
coming. 

I hear a great many things predicted about the end of the war, 
but I do not know what is going to happen at the end of the war; 
and neither do you. There are two diametrically opposed views as 
to immigration. Some men tell us that at least a million men are 
going to leave the country and others tell us that many millions are 
going to rush into it. Neither party knows what they are talking 
about, and I am one of those prudent individuals who would really 
like to know the facts before he forms an opinion; not out of wisdom 
but out of prudence. I have lived long enough to know that if I do 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. "9 

not, the fncts will jrot away with ino. T have ccinc to ha\(' a ijivat 
and wholosonio respect foi" tlie facts. I iiave liad to yiehl to thcni 
som'-'times l)el"oi'e 1 saw tlieiu coiniii*; ami that has led iiic to Uccp a 
weather eye oi)en in older that 1 may sec tlicm ccmiiijz. 1 here is so 
miieh to iindeistand that we have not the data to com])i('h('ml that I 
for one would not daie, so far as my adviee is concerned, to leave 
the (lovernment without the ailequate means of inquiry — but that 
is another parenthesis. 

AVhat I am trying; to impress upon you now is that the ciicuin- 
stances of the world to-day are not what they were yesteiday. or 
ever were in any of our yesterdays. And it is not cei-tain what they 
will be to-nuirrow. I can not tell you what the international rela- 
tions of this country will be to-morrow, and I use the word literally; 
and I would not dare keep silent and let the counti-y sup|)ose that to- 
morrow was certain to be as bright as to-day. America will never bek 
th e aggressor. America will always seek to the la.st point at whicli| 
Eer honor is involved to avoid the things which disturb the peace 
"of the world; but America does not control the circumstances of the 
"^rortdrancT we must be sure that we are faithful servants of those 
things which we love, and are ready to defend them against every 
contingency that may all'ect or impair them. 

And, as I was -aying a moment ago, we must seek the means which 
are consistent with the principles of our lives. It goes without say- 
ing, though appai'ently it is necessary to say it to some excited per- 
sons, that one thing that this country never will endure is a sy.-tem 
that can be called militarism. But militarism consists in this, gen- 
tlemen: It consists in preparing a great machine whose only use is 
for war and giving it no u?e upon which to exi)end itself. Men who 
are in charge of etlgetl tools and bidtlen to prepare them for exact 
and scientific use grow very impatient if they are not {HM-mitted to 
use them, and I do not believe that the creation of such an instru- 
ment is an insurance of peace. I believe that it involves tlie danger 
of all the impulses that skillful persons have to use the things that 
they know how to use. 

But we do not have to do that. America is always going to use 
her Army in two ways. She is going to use it for the purposes of 
peace, and she is going to use it as a nucleus for expansion into those 
things which she does believe in, namely, the preparation of her citi- 
zens to take care of themselves. There are two sides to the ([uestion 
of preparation; there is not merely the military side, there is the 
industrial side; and the ideal which I have in mind is this: We 
ought to have in this country a great system of industrial and vo- 
cational education under Federal guidance and with Federal aid, 
in which a very large percentage of the youth of this country will 
be given training in the skillful use and api)lication of the princii)Ies 
of science in manufacture and business; and it wjll be perfectly 
feasible and highly desirable to add to that and combine with it such 
a training in the mechanism and care and use of arms, in the sani- 
tation of camjis. in the simpler forms of maneuver and (U'gani/.ation, 
as will make tlu'se same men at one and the same time industi'ially 
efficient and immediately servicinible for national defen-e. The point 
about such a system will be that its emjihasis will lie on the indus- 
trial and civil side of life, and that, like all the rest of America, the 
use of force will only be in the background and as the last re-ort. 
H. Doe. son, 04-1 2 



10 ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

'Men will think first of their fninilics and tlieir daily "worlc. of their 
service in the economic ranks of the conntry, of their eiriciency as 
artisans, and only last of all of their serviceability to the Nation as 
soldiers and men at arms. That is the ideal of America. 

But, gentlemen, you can not create such a system overnioht : you 
can not create such a system rapidly. It has got to be built up, and I 
hope it will be built up, by slow and etFective stages; and there is 
much to be done in the meantime. We must see to it that a suflicient 
body of citizens is given the kind of training which will make them 
efficient now if called into the field in case of necessity. It is dis- 
creditable to this country, gentlemen, for this is a country full of 
intelligent men, that we should have exhibited to the world tlie 
example we have sometimes exhibited to it, of stupid and brutal 
waste of force. Think of asking men who can be easily trained to 
come into the field, crude, ignorant, inexperienced, and merely fur- 
nishing the stuff for camp fever and the bullets of the enemy. The 
sanitary experience of our Army in the Spanish-American War was 
merely an indictment of America's indifference to the manifest les- 
sons of experience in the matter of ordinary, careful preparation. 
We have got the men to waste, but God forbid that we should Avaste 
them. Men who go as efficient instruments of national honor into 
the field afford a very handsome spectacle indeed. Men who go 
in crude and ignorant boys only indict those in authority for 
stupidity and neglect. So it seems to me that it is our manifest 
duty to have a proper citizen reserve. 

I am not forgetting our National Guard. I have had the privilege 
of being governor of one of our great States, and there I was brought 
into association w'ith what I am ghul to believe is one of the most 
efficient portions of the National Guard of the Nation. I learned 
to admire the men, to respect the officers, and to believe in the Na- 
tional Guard; and I believe that it is the duty of Congress to do very 
much more for the National Guard than it has ever done heretofore. 
I believe that that great arm of our national defense should be built 
up and encouraged to the utmost; but, you know, gentlemen, that 
under the Constitution of the United States the National Guard is 
under the direction of more than twoscore States; that it is not per- 
mitted to the National Government directly to have a voice in its 
development and organization ; and that only upon occasion of actual 
invasion has the President of the United States the right to ask those 
men to leave their respective States. I, for my part, am afraid, though 
some gentlemen differ Avitli me, that there is no way in which that 
force can be made a direct resource as a national reserve under na- 
tional authoritJ^ 

What we need is a body of men trained in association with units of 
the Army, a body of men organized under the immediate direction of 
the national authority, a body of men subject to the immediate call to 
arms of the national authority, and yet men not put into the ranks of 
the Regular Army; men left to their tasks of civil life, men su]:)plied 
with equipment and training, but not drawn away from the peaceful 
pursuits which have made America great and must keep her great. 
I am not a partisan of any one plan. I have had too much experience 
to think that it is right to say that the phin that I propose is the 
only plan that will work, because I have a shrewd suspicion that there 
may be other plans that will work. What I am after, and what every 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 11 

American ou<i:ht to insist upon, is a body of ut least half a million 
trained citizens wlio will serve under cdiiditions of dan^^er as an 
immediately a\ailal)le national i-eserve. 

1 am notsayin<; anythinii; about the Navy to-niirht. bi'caust' foisomc 
reason there is not the same controversy about the Na\y that there is 
about the Army. The Navy is obvious and easily understood: the 
Ai'my a|)i)arently is very dillicult to comprehend and understand. We 
have a traditional pivjudice aj^ainst armies which nndces us slop think- 
inu: cahnly the minute we be<jin talkinjj: about them. We suppose that 
all armies are alike antl that there can not be an American Army 
system, that it nnist be a European system, and that is wiiat 1 I'or 
one am tryin<2: to divest my own mind of. 'J'lie Navy is so obvious 
an instrument of national defense that I believe that, with differ- 
ences of opinion about the detail, it is not jJ!:<'in<^ to be dillicult to 
cai'ry out a proper and reasonable pro<j:i'am for the increase of 
the Navy. 

But that is another story; my theme to-ni<j:ht is national defense 
on land where we seem most negligent of it. And I do not want to 
leave in your minds the impression that I have any anxiety as to the 
outcome, for I have not the slightest. There is only one way for 
parties and individuals to win the conlidence of this Nation and that 
is by doing the things that ought to be done. Nobody is going to be 
deceived. Speeches are not going to win elections. The facts are 
going to sj)eak for themselves and speak louder than anybody who 
contrt)verts them. No political party, no group of men, can alford 
to disappoint America. This is a year of political accounting, and 
the Americans in ))olitics are rather expert accountants. They know 
what the books contain and they are not going to be deceived about 
them. No man is going to hide behind any excuse; the goods mu.st 
be delivered or the confidence will not be enjoyed. For my part, 
1 hope that every man in i)ublic life will get what is coming to him. 

If this is true, gentlemen, it is becau.se of things that lie much 
deeper than laughter, much deeper than cheers; lie down at the very 
roots of our life. America refuses to be deceived about the things 
that most concern her natioanl honor and national safety, that lie 
at the foundation of everything that you love. It is the solenni time 
when men must examine not only their purposes but their hearts. 
Men must purge themselves of individual ambition, and must see 
to it that they are ready for the utmost self-sacrifice in the interests 
of the common welfare. Let no man dare play the maiplot. I^et 
no man dare bring partisan passion into these great things. Let 
men honestly debate the facts and courageously act upon them. 
Then there will come that day when the world will say, "This 
America that we thought was full of a multitude of contrary counsels 
now speaks with the great volume of tlie heart's accord, and that 
great heart of America has behind it the supreme moral force of 
righteousness and hope and the liberty of mankind." 



SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL HAL'.. PITTSBl'RGH. FA., JANl'ARY 29, 1916. 

Mr. CirATiniAX, Laoif.s, ano (ir.xn.KMKN : I am consci<»us of a sort 
of truancy in being absent fi-om my duties in "W^ishington. and yet 
it did .'-eem to me to be clearly the obligation hiid u])on me by the 



12 ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

office to which I have been chosen that, as your servant and represen- 
tative, I should come and report to yon upon the progress of public 
aii'airs. 

It has always been a feeling of mine that the best place for public 
servants was in the presence of those they serve, and that it was 
the obvious duty of every public man to hold frank counsel with the 
people themselves. I must frankly admit, with apologies to the 
chairman of the meeting and his associates, that I get a great deal 
more inspiration outside of Washington than inside of it; not be- 
cause others are not as devoted as I am to the performance of their 
duties, but because the people of the United States live outside of 
Washington. And the subject upon which I have come to address 
you is one upon which franlv counsel is particularly needed. 

You know that there is a multitude of voices upon the question of 
national defence, and I, for my part, am not inclined to criticise 
any of the views that have been put forth upon this importtmt sub- 
ject, because if there is one thing we love more than another in the 
TJnited States, it is that every man should have the ])rivilege, un- 
molested and uncriticised, to utter the real convictions of his niind. 
Some of the things that are being said proceed from sentiment, and 
I would be the last to detract from genuine sentiment. I feel myself 
moved by some of the sentiments, with the conclusions of Avhich I 
can not agree, just as much as the gentleman are moved themselves 
who utter them. I believe in peace, I love peace. I would not be a 
true American if I did not love peace. But I know that peace costs 
something, and that the only way in which you can maintain peace 
is by thoroughly enjoying the re.>^pect of everybody with whom you 
deal. While, therefore, I can subscribe to every clesire which those 
fine people have who are counselling us against assuming arms in: 
this countr}", I must ask them to think a second time about the cir- 
cumstances under which we are living. 

There are other counselors the source of whose coimsel is passion, 
and Avith them I can not agree. It is not w^ise, it is not possible, to 
guide national policy under the impulse of passion. I would be 
ashamdd of the passion of fear, and I would try to put the passion 
of aggression entirely aside in advising my fellow citizens what they 
should do at any great crisis of their national life. America does not 
desire anything that any other nation can give it except friendship 
and justice and right conduct, and I am sorry for my part to see any 
passion, whether of fear or of dislike, stir the counsels of America. 
I have counseled my fellow citizens not only to be neutral in action in 
the presence oTthe present great EuropeTiirstTuggle, but alsol:x) be 
neutral in spirit and in feeling, and I have tried for my own part to 
hold off from every passion. I know it is not easy. When the Avorld 
is rTinnihgnred wltTi~I)loocl it is hard to keep the judgment cool. 
When men are suffering and offering up heroic sacrifice it is hard not 
to let the passion of sympathy take precedence over cool judgment. 
But while I can understand the excitements of the mind which cir- 
cumstances have generated, I would tremble to see them guide the 
decisions of the country. 

And there is other advice Avhich we get, which proceeds from pvo- 
fessional enthusiasm. I am glad that the soldiers and sailors of the 
United States have professional enthusiasm, but I would not like 
them to run away with me any more than I would like the passions 



ADDRESSES OF RESIDENT WILSON, 13 

and sympatliios of my fellow couiitryinen to run away witli inc. 
While we admire their zeal, we inust s(|iiai"e their jii<l<;inent with 
other staiulai'ds than the pi'ofessional standard. 1 admire every 
man's jirofessional enthusiasm, hut I would not wish to I)e <;uided hy 
every man's professional enthusiasm. It is time, therefore, that wo 
attemi)ted at any rate to apply the standaiils of our own situation 
and of our own life to this ^reat (piestion of national defi'iice. 

A\'hat is it that we want to defend? You do not need to ha\e mo 
answer that (piestion for you; it is your own thou;/ht. We want to 
defend the life of this Nation aftairist any sort of interference. Wo 
want to maintain the equal ri<rht of this Nation as aj^ainst the action 
of all other nations, and we wish to maintain the peace and unity of 
the Western riemis|)here. Those are ^reat thin<j;s to defend, and in 
their defence sometimes our thou<!;ht must taUe a ^leat sweep, (!Ven 
beyontl our own borders. Do you never stop to retlect just what it 
is that America stands for? If she stands foi- one tiling more than 
another, it is for the sovereignty of self-governing peoples, and her 
example, her assistance, her encouragement, has thiilled two con- 
tinents in this Western World with all the line impulses which have 
built uj) human liberty on both sides of the water. She stands, there- 
fore, as an exami)lc of independence, as an example of free institu- 
tions, and as an example of disinterested international action in the 
maintenance of justice. These are very great things to defend, and 
wherever they are attacked America has at least the duty of example, 
has at least the duty of such action as it is possible for lier with self- 
respect to take, in order that these things may not be neglected or 
thrust on one side. 

So it seems to me that the thing that we are in love with in Amer- 
icjv is efliciency. Not merely business efficiency; not merely efficiency 
in manufacture and in the professions; not merely the raising of 
great crops and the getting of our treasure out of the bowels of the 
earth and the manufacture of our raw materials into the things that 
are most useful to civilization. That efficiency merely underlies and 
furnishes a foundation for something a great deal bigger than (hat. 
We want the spirit of America to be eflicient. We want American 
chai'acter to be eflicient. We want American character to dis])lay 
itself in what I may perhaps be allowed to call sjiiritual ellicioncy — 
clear, disinterested thinking and fearless action along the right lines 
of thought. America is nothing if it consists merely of each of us; 
it is something only if it consists of all of us, and it can not consist 
of all of us unless our spirits are banded together in a common 
enterprise. That common enterprise is the enterprise of liberty and 
justice and right. Therefore, I t'or my ]Kirt have a great enthusiasm 
for rendering America spiritually efficient, and that conception lies 
at the basis of what seems very far removed from it, namely, the 
plans that have been i)ropose(i for the military efficiency of this 
Nation. 

Those ])lans do not involve a great army, because that is not 
America's way of being elKcient in respect of her physical force. 
We do not intend, we never intend, to have a stand army greater 
than is necessary for the ordinary uses of peace; but we want to have 
back of that army a people who can rally to its assistance in the 
most efficacious fashion at any time they are called on to do so. but 
who, in the meantime, are not professional soldiers, who do not take 



14 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

the professional soldier's point of view in respect of public affairs, 
Avhose thouiiht is upon their daily tasks of peaceful industry, and 
who know that in the United States the civillian takes precedence of 
the soldier. 

Your chairman has just told you that the Constitution of the 
United States makes the President Commander in Chief of the 
armies and navies of the United States, and not often has the 
President been a soldier. I have sometimes said playfully that it 
was very awkward when dressed in a frcck coat and a silk hat to 
ride a horse and review troops, and the only reason I have consented 
to do so is because those formal garments, the verj^ sombre and 
formal garments which constitute a man's full dress in the daytime, 
are the symbol upon such occasions of the supremacy of the civil 
power over the militar}". A plain gentleman in black — sometimes a 
very plain gentleman — presides over the military force of the Nation, 
anci the thing is s3anbolic. We think first of peace, we think first 
of the civilian life, we think first of industry; we want the men who 
are going to defend the Nation to be immersed in these pursuits of 
peace. But we want them to know how, when occasion arises, to rally 
to the assistance of the professional soldier of the country and show 
the nations of the w^orkl the might of America. Such men will not 
seek w;ar. Such men will dread it as we all dread it. Such men 
will know that the happiness of their families and the prosperity 
of their countrysides and the wealth of their cities and everything 
upon Avhich their life depends is rooted and grounded in peace, but 
they will also know^ that upon occasion infinite sacrifice must be made 
of life and of wealth and that there are things that are hii>;her 
than the ordinary occupations of life, namely, all assertions of the 
ideals of right. 

I am not going before audiences like this to go into the details of 
the prograinme which has been proposed to Uie Congress of the 
United States, because, after all, the details do not make any differ- 
ence. I believe in one plan; others may think that an equally good 
plan can be substituted, and I hope my mind is open to be conA'inced 
that it can ; but what I am convinced of and what we are all working 
for is that there should be provided, not a great militant force in this 
country, but a great reserve of adequate and available force which 
can be called on upon occasion. I have proposed that we should be 
supplied with at least half a million men accustomed to handle arms 
and to live in camps; and that is a very small number as compared 
with the gigantic proportions of modern armies. Therefore, it seems 
to me that no man can speak of proposals like that as if they pointed 
in the direction of militarism. 

When men talk of the threat of what is proposed, I wonder if they 
have really stopped to consider wdiat is actually proposed. It is 
astonishing how many men of straw are set up and gallantly knocked 
down. It is astonishingly easy to prove that something is Avrong 
wdiich nobody has proposed, and this Nation is not going to be de- 
ceived by the fears of gentlemen who are fearful only of the things 
which they have imagined. We are not going to be stalked and 
damited by ghosts and fancies. We arc pi'oposing a very business- 
like thing. I for my part believe that I am ])r()])osing a thoroughly 
business-like thing. For 1 am proposing something more than what 
is temporary. It is my conception that as the Goverinnent of the 



ADDKKHSKS OF PRESIDKNT WIIX»N. 15 

United States li:\.s done a ^reat deal, tlioii^li t'\iii yet prcjbaljly not 
enough, to promote agrieultiu'al education in tiiis counti'y, it ought 
to do a great deal to promote industrial education in this country, 
and that along with thoroughgoing industrial and vocational train- 
ing it is peri'ei'tly feasible to instruct the youth (d" the land in tho 
mechanism aiul use of arms, in the sanitation of camps, in the more 
rudimentary principles and practices of niodern warfare, aiul so not 
to bring about occasions such as we have sometimes brought about, 
when upon a sudden danger youngsters were sunniHtncd by the proc- 
lamation of the President out of every comnnniity, who came crude 
and green and raw into the service of tlieir country — infinitely willing 
but also wholly unfitted for the great physical task which was ahead 
of them. No nation should waste its youth like that. A nation liko 
this should bo ashamed to use an inellicient instrument when it can 
make its instrument ellicient for everything that it needs to employ it 
for, and can do it along with the magnifying and ennobling and 
quickening of the tasks of peace. 

But we have to create the schools and develop the schools to do 
these things, and we can not at present wait for this slow process. 
AVe must go at once to the task of training a very consideral)le body 
of men to the use of arms and the life of camps, and we can do so 
upon one condition, and one condition only. The test, ladies and 
gentlemen, of what we are proposing is not going to be the action of 
Congress; it is going to be the response of the country. It is going 
to be the volunteering of the men to take the training and the willing- 
ness of their employers to see to it that no obstacle is put in the way of 
their volunteering. It will be up to the young men of this country 
and to the men who employ them: then, and not till then, we shall 
know how far it is true that America wishes to prepare itself for 
national defense — not a matter of sentiment, but a matter of hard 
practice. 

Are the men going to come out, and are those who employ them go- 
ing to facilitate their coming out? I for one believe that they will. 
There are many selfish influences at work in this country, as in every 
other; but when it comes to the large view America can produce the 
substance of patriotism as abundantly as any other country under 
God's sun. I have no anxiety along those lines, and I have no anxiety 
.-jlong the lines of what Congress is going to do. You elect men to 
Congress who have opinions, and it is not strange that they should 
have dill'ering opinions. I am not jealous of debate. If what I pi-o- 
pose can not stand debate, then something ou^ht to be substituted 
for it which can. And I am not afraid that it is going to be all de- 
bate. I am not afraid that nothing is going to come out of it. I am 
not afraid that we shall fail to get out of it the most sui)stantial and 
satisfactory results. Certainly when I talk a great deal myself I am 
not going to be jealous of the other man's having a chance to talk 
also. We are talking. I take it, in order to iret at the very final ainily- 
sis of the case, the final jnoof and demonstration of what we ouglit 
to do. 

My own feeling, ladies and gentienK'n, is that it is a pity that this 
is a cami)aign year. I hojie, with the chairman of the meeting, that 
the question of national preparation for defense will not by anybody 
be drawn into campaign uses or partisan aspects. There are many 
differences between DtMuocrats and I\epublicans. honest tlitlVrences 



16 ADDRESSES OF PEESIDEISTT WILSON. 

of opinion nnd of conviction, bnt Democrats do not differ from 
Tvepiiblicnns upon the question of the Nation's safety, and no man 
ought to draw this thing into controversy in order to make party or 
personal profit out of it. I am ready to acknowledge that men on 
the other side politicall}^ are just as deeply and just as intelligently 
interested in this question as I am, of course, and I shall be ashamed 
of any friends of mine Avho may take any different view of it. 

I want you to realize just what is happening, not in America but 
in the rest of the world. It is very hard to describe it briefly. It is 
\evy hard to describe it in quiet phrases. The Avorld is on fire, and 
there is tinder everywhere. The sparks are liable to drop anywhere, 
and somewhere there may be material which we can not prevent from 
bursting into flame. The influence of passion is everywhere abroad in 
the ATorld. It is not strange that men see red in such circumstances. 
AMiat a year ago was incredible has now happened and the world is 
so in the throes of this titanic struggle that no part of it is unaffected. 

You know Avhat is hajopening. You know that by a kind of im- 
providence which should be very uncharacteristic of America we have 
neglected for several generations to provide the means to carry our 
own commei-ce on the seas, and, therefore, being dependent upon 
other nations for the most part to carry our commerce, we are depend- 
ent upon other nations now for the movement of our commerce wdien 
other nations are caught in the grip of war. So that every natural 
impulse of our peaceful life is embarrassed and impeded by the cir- 
cumstances of the time, and wherever there is contact there is apt to 
be friction. Wherever the ordinary rules of commerce at sea and of 
international relationship are thrust aside or ignored, there is danger 
of the more critical kind of controversy. Where nations are engaged 
as many nations are nov/ engaged, they are peculiarly likely to be 
stubbornly steadfast in the pursuit of the purpose which is the main 
purpose of the moment; and so, wdiile Ave move among friends, we 
move among friends who are preoccupied, preoccupied Avith an ex- 
igent matter AAdiich is foreign to our own life, foreign to our OAvn 
policy, but Avhich ncA^ertheless inevitabl}'^ affects our own life and our 
own policy. While a year ago it seemed impossible that a struggle 
upon so great a scale should last a Avhole tAvelvemonth, it has noAV 
lasted a 3'^ear and a half and the end is not yet, and all the time things 
have grown more and more difficult to handle. 

It fills me Avith a A-ery strange feeling sometimes, my fellow citi- 
zens, Avhen it seems to be implied that I am not the friend of peace. 
If these gentlemen could haA^e sat Avith me reading the dispatches 
and handling the questions Avhich arise every hour of the tAA^enty-f our, 
they would have knoAvn how infinitely difficult it had been to maintain 
the peace and they would have believed that I Avas the friend of 
peace. But I also knoAv the difficulties, the real dangers, dangers 
not about things that I can handle, but about things that the other 
parties handle and I can not control. 

It amazes nic to hear men speak as if America stood alone in the 
Avoi'ld and could follow her oAvn life as she pleased. We are in the 
midst of a Avorld that Ave did not make and can not alter; its atmos- 
])heric and ph5'sical conditions are the conditions of our oAvn life also, 
and therefore, as your responsible servant, I must tell you that the 
dangers are infinite and constant. I should feel that I Avas guilty of 
an unpardonable omission if I did not go out and tell my fellow 



ADDRESSES OF TRESIDENT WILSON. 17 

CouiitrviiKMi that new ciiciiiiistaiici's ]\i\\c aiiscn wliicli iiia'.c it altso- 
liitely iiocoHsarv tliat this coimti-v sliould piopaie luM-solf. not loi- 
Avar, not for anythinir that smacks in thi' least of aL'^ivssion, hut 
for ackMjuatc national dcfcni-o. 

IHo 1 liavo conio out from the scchision of A\'ashin;_''ton and have 
broken wiiat I hope you consider a ^'ooil rule, namely, that a man 
ought steadfastly to attend to business. Counsel has become the 
most necessary business of the houi-. The most necessary tiling to 
do now is to make Amei'ica at-cpiainted with her own situation in tlu; 
■\voi-ld and acijUainteil with tiie fact that not all the i)roccsses of con- 
duct aie within her own control : that, on the conti-ary. they are daily 
and hourly all'ected by things which she can not govein or dii-ect. 
Ai)|)eals of this sort are aDt to be only too ade((uate. I am not afraid 
that America will do nothing. I am only desirous that she shouhl / 
be very coolly considerate of what she does. One cool judgment irs v 
worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to do is to supply light 
and not heat. There ought, if there is any heat at all, to be that 
"uarmth of the heart which makes every man thrust aside his own 
personal feelings, his own personal interests, and take thought of 
the welfare and benefit of others. 

We seem sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, to be very careless in 
our use of woi-ds, and yet there are some words about which we are 
very careful. AVe call every sort of man who has displayed unusual 
powers "great": we call some bad men "great"; but we reserve the 
Avord "honorable" for those who are great, but spend their great- 
ness upon others rather than upon themselves. You erect statues to 
men who have made great sacrifices or to men Avho have gi\en great 
beneficences. You do not erect statues to men who have served otdy 
themselves. There is a patriciate even in democratic America. Our 
peers are the men who have spent their great energies outside the 
narrow circle of tlieir own self-interest, and who have seen to it that 
great largess of infellecti-al effort was given for the benefit of the 
communities in which they lived. These are the men we honor; 
these are the men who are the charactej'istic Americans. America 
was born into the world to do mankind service, and no man is a true 
American in whom the desire to do mankind service does not take 
precedence over the desire to serve himself. If I believed that the 
might of America was a threat to any free man in the world. I would 
wish America to be weak, but I belie\e the might of America is the 
might of righteous purjiose and of a sincere love for the freedom of 
maidvind. 

For my own part T am verj'^ much stirred by every siglit that I get 
of the flag of the United States. I did not use to have the sentiment 
as i^oignantly as I have it now, but if you stood in my place, lailies 
and gentlemen, and felt that in some peculiar and unusual degive the 
honour of that Hag was entrusted to your keei)ing. how would you 
feel? Would you not feel that you were a soit of trustee for the 
ideals of Amei-ica ( \Yo\}\i\ you not feel that you ought to go out atul 
seek counsel of your fellow citizens as to what they thought Amei-ica 
to be and what they thought you ought to do honourably and |)er- 
fectly to rejiresent America? AA'ouhl you not feel that if anvthing 
were incumbent upon you more than another it was to understand 

11. Doc. S03, 04-1 3 



18 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

what that flag stands for? That flag was originally stained in very 
precious blood, blood spilt, not for any dynasty, not for any small 
controversies over national advantage, but in order that a little body 
of three million men in America might make sure that no man was 
their master; and as this Nation has accumulated in population and 
in power, as the tread of it has shaken every foot of this great con- 
tinent, as we have built up great wealth and majestic cities aiid made 
fertile farms to bloom from one side of it to the other, there have 
been built up men who were calling constantly npon their public 
representatives to be trustees of that original conception. 

America can not afford to be weak, and she can not afford to 
nse her strength for anything which does not honour the Stars and 
Stripes. What I want you to do is this: I do not Avant you merely 
to listen to speeches. I want you to make yourselves vocal. I want 
you to let everybody who comes within earshot of it know that you 
are a partisan for the adequate preparation of the United Stntes 
for national defence. I have come to ask you not merely to go home 
and say, "The President seems to be a good fellow and to mean 
what he sa^'s": I want you to go home determined that within the 
whole circle of your influence the President, not as a partisan but 
as the representative of the national honour, shall be backed up by 
the whole force that is in the Nation. 

I know that that appeal is not in vain, for I know v/hat deep foun- 
tains of sentiment well up in America. I know that the surface of 
our life sometimes seems sordid. I know that the men who do most 
of the talking do not always hear the undertones of our life; but 
I know that the men who go in and out on the farm, tlie men who 
go in and out at the factory door, the men who go in and out at 
the offices, the men who go abroad upon ships, the men who travel 
up and down the country to quicken the courses of our commerce, 
underneath the surface of every one of these men there is the beating 
of a heart which is willing to make a profound sacrifice for the 
country that we all love: and those hearts are now going to be 
guided by very hard-headed minds, by minds that know how to think 
and plnn and insist; and out of what seems an intricate dc^bate there 
is going to come a great phin for national defence of which we will 
all be proud and which will lead us to forget partisan differences 
in one ereat enthusiasm for the United States of America. 



OVERFLOW MEETING AT SOLDIERS' MERIORIAL HALL, PITTS- 
BURGH, PA., JANUARY 29, 1916. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen: I feel that I was lured 
here under false pretenses. I was told that I Avas to address an audi- 
ence of women, and the men, as usual, have been usurpers and have 
come in. AA'hen I reflected what I should say to a body of women 
about military preparation for national defense, it seemed to me that 
there was no excuse for making any difference between what I 
should say to them and what I should say to any other body of 
citi/.ens of the United States, unless, indeed, there was this reason for 
a difference: There is a sense in which the women of the country live 
closer to the life of it than the men. The preoccupations of business 



ADDRESSriS OF PRESIDKNT WII.SOX. 19 

for tlio man v.Iio has (o woi'k I'uv his (hiily hrcail and for {\iv bread 
of thoso whonj he loves and who are depench-nt on him are such that 
sometimes the nuiterial side of life seems to him the only real side 
of life. I lind that very few men stop to (hinl< of the life of th(! 
family, of the life of the eonnnunity, of the life of the Stat«' and the 
Nation; their absorption is neeessai'ily so ^ivat in the daily task 
that tlu' spiritual needs do not often or very closely touch them, and 
it lias stM'uied to me that in the home, in the contact with the childii'n, 
in the anxieties for the morals and the daily conduct of those whom 
they lo\o. the women perhaps feel the pulse of the country more than 
the men do. And it is in order that we may preserve the thoufj^hlful 
ideals of America that it is necessary we should make i)rcparation 
for national defense. 

The old cry for the defense of your hearth an<I home does not 
seem ti) me a very handsome appeal. It is easy to love what is your 
own, and it is easy to H<?ht for what is your own. No man with ;v 
drop of manliness in him wouUl do anything; else. The thin^ that is 
hard is to liaht for the thinas that do not inmiediately touch us in 
order tiiat others may live whom we do not love antl do not even 
know, in order (hat the great tides of the national life mi<;ht (low 
free and unobstructed, in order that the fjreat ideals and purposes 
and lonijiniis of the people we never see mi<:;ht be realized. That is 
the life of a nation. No man ever saw the people of whom he forms 
a part. No man ever saw a government. 1 live in the midst of the 
Government of the United States, but I never saw the (iovernment 
of the Ignited States. Its personnel extends through all the nations 
and across the seas and into every corner of the world; in the i)ies- 
ence of tlie representatives of the United States in foreign cajiitals, 
and in foreign centers of connnerce. 1 never saw the (Jovernment 
of the United States. It is an ideal, and I nnist share its spirit by 
the use of my imagination. I must make myself a part of it with 
thoughts that are national — the things that move great bodies of 
men to ilevote themselves to great tasks and even great adventures. 

I supjiose that as the womoi of the country meditate npon the life 
that surges around them there must very often come into their 
heai-ts something of the profound feeling that jiulses through great 
national existence. I do not believe that the women of this country 
are interested in national defense merely in order that they may 
be physically piotcctcd. If that was all we cared for. there would 
not be any spirit of America. The flag would not stand for anything 
if it were merely a roof over my head or a bulwark against an 
attack upon me. The Hag stands for something for which we are all 
trustees, the gi'eat part that America is to i)lay in the world. 

And what is the part that America is to play in the world? 
Amei'ica stands, first of all, for the right of men to tletermine whom 
they will obey and whom they will sei've; for the right of political 
freedom and a people's sovereignty ; and anybodv who interfeivs with 
those conce|)tions by touching the affairs of America makes it neces- 
sary that America should assert her rights. America has not only to 
assert her right to her own life within iier own borders, she has also 
to assert her right to the equal and just treatment of her citizens 
wherever they go. And she has something even more than that to 



20 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

insist upon, because she made up her mind long ago that she was 
going to stand up, so far as this Western Hemisphere is concerned, 
for the right of peoples to choose their own politics without foreign 
influence or interference. So she has a gigantic task which she can 
not shirk without disgrace. 

In ordinary circumstances it has not been necessary for America 
to think of force, because everybody knows that there is latent in her 
as much, force as resides anywhere in the world. This great body of 
100,000.000 people has an average of intelligence and resourcefulness 
probably un]:>recedented in the history of the world. Nobody doubts 
that, given time enough, we can assert any amount of force that may 
be necessary; but vrhen the world is on fire how much t-me can you 
{i.fford to take to be ready? When you know that there are com- 
bustible materials in the life of the world and in your own national 
life, and that the sky is full of floating sparks from a great con- 
flagration, are you gcing to sit down and say it will be time when 
the fire beg'ns to do something about it? I do not believe that the 
fire is going to begin, but I would be surer of it if we were ready for 
the fire. And I want to come as your responsible servant and tell 
you this, that we do not control the fire. We are under the infln- 
f-nces of it, but we are not at the sources of it. We are where it at 
any time may affect us, and yet we can not govern its spread and 
progress. If it once touches us, it may touch the very sources of our 
life, for it may touch the very things we stand for, and we might for 
fi little while be unable successfully to vindicate and defend them. 
I am not come here to tell you of any immediate threat of a definite 
dano"er, because by very great patience, by making our position 
perfectly clear, and then steadfastly maintaining the same attitude 
throughout creat controvers'es. we have so far held difficulty at arm's 
length; but I want you to realize the task you have imposed upon 
your Government. 

There are two tilings which practically everybody who comes to 
the Executive Office in Washington tells me. They tell me, "The 
people are counting upon .you to keep us out of this war." And in the 
next breath, what "do they tell me, " The people are equally counting 
upon vou to maintain the honor of the United States." Have you 
reflected that a time might come when I could not do both? And 
have you made yourselves ready to stand behind your Government 
for the maintenance of the honor of your country, as well as for the 
maintenance of the peace of the country? If I am to maintain the 
honor of thi United States and it should be necessary to exert the 
force of the United States in order to do it, have you made the force 
ready? You know that you have not, and the very fact that the force 
is not ready may make the task you have set for me all the more 
delicate and all the more difficult!^ I have come away from Wash- 
ingto to remind you of your part in this great business. There is no 
part that belongs to me" that I wish to shirk, but I wish you to bear 
the part that belongs to you. I want every man and woman of you 
to , stand behind me in' pressing a reasonable plan for national 
defense. 

The (mly possible reasonable plan is an American plan. The 
American plan is not a great military establishment. The American 
plan is a great body of citizens who are ready to rally to the national 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSOX. 21 

dofense and adequately soi\i' the niiliiiriiil (Icfciiso wlu-ii it is neces- 
sary to do so. Jiibt as the heart of our pnlitjrs lies in the breast of 
the averii<re man. so tlie strength of the Nation rests in the capacity 
of the indivichial man. lie ()U<j,ht to Uunw how modiMii arms ar»' mado 
and how they ou;j:ht to he IjandU'd ; he oii<jfht t(< Unow tlu' riidimt'tilary 
principles of camj) sanitation; he ouiiht to know the elements of 
mditary discipline, so that when he <i()es to the defense of his Nation 
he will not be a raw reeiaiit. but a man who knows what is e.Npected 
of him and needs only the ijuulanee of competent ollicci-s to do it. 

You know how every constitution in the United States — the Con- 
stitution of the Nation and the constitutions of the States — lays it 
down as a i)rincii)le that every man in America has the i-ifrht to 
carry arms. He has not the ri<2;ht to conceal them, because yoii 
Avould converse with a man with a p;un o\er his shoulder perhaps 
in a ditl'erent tone (jf xoice than if he had the j>;un concealed. Con- 
cealed arms are not the constitutional j)rivile^e of anybody, but 
obviously arms are the conslitutional privileiie of everybody in the 
United States, for the very conception of our politics is that tho 
C(>untry is £!;('in<]f to be taken care of by the men who live in it, and 
that they are net goinc; to depute the task. Every audience still, after 
the passage of more tlnm a hundreil years, is stirred by the stories 
of the embattled fai'mers at Lexinjjfton, the men who had arms, who 
seized them and came Un-th in order to assert the indept-ndence and 
political fieedom of themselves and their entei'})rise. 'J'hat is the 
ideal pictui'c of America, the rising; of the Nati( n. I>ut do we want 
the Nation to rise unschooled. inexi)erienced, ineffective, and fur- 
nish targets for i)owder and did before they realize how to dt'fend 
themsehes at all i 

I am not goinji to expound to you a ]iarticular plan for training 
a great citizen reserve, because the detail of the |)lan is not the im- 
portant part of it. The important part is that it is imperatively 
necessary that we shoidd hav(> a plan, have it early, and put it into 
execution at the earliest j^ossible mcnient, by which we will have a 
great reserve of men sufficiently traineil for any kind of military 
service and ready when they are called on. These ai'c the things that 
we are g<»!ng to have. I say that because I believe it to be an actual 
necessity: I say it because I am confident that the men in Congress 
know a national necessity when they see it. I know there will be a 
great deal of debate and many differences of opinion — many honest 
and intelligent differences of opinion — as to how the thing ought to 
be done, but there is not going to be any difference of purpose as to 
what ought to be done. 

Of course, there are some gentlemen who allow themselves to be 
deceived by very handsr me sentiments. If a man is so in love with 
peace that he can not imagine any kind of danger, I alm<st envy 
him the trance he is in. and so long as he is in the trance he is not 
going to do anything but enjoy the vision. liiit such men are n<;t 
many. America is a harddieaded nation, and America generally 
wants to see the facts as they come before they get here. And the 
facts of the woi'ld are such that it is my duty to counsel my f» How 
citizens that preparation for national defense can not any longer be 
postponed. 



22 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

I am not one of those who believe that a great standing army is 
the means of maintaining peace, because if you buikl up a great pro- 
fession these who form parts of it want to exercise their professions, 
and I can not bhime them for it. 1 should myself hate to be ready 
to do an expert thing and never be permitted to do it. But, for my 
part, I am sure we have never encouraged in America the spirit of 
militarism, and we shall never have militarism in the United States. 
AVhat I am particularly interested in is that my fellow citizens 
should make a distinction between militarism in any form and the 
things that are now being pro])osed to the Congress of the United 
States. If men are engaged nine months out of the twelve in the pur- 
suits of commerce and manufacture and agriculture and are in camp 
to take a little training only two or three months in the year, do 
you suppose they are going to have the spirit of the three months 
and net the spirit of the nine months? Do you not see that they 
are immersed in the civil and economic life of the Nation? They 
know what war means; they know what it will cost them and those 
dependent en them. There will be bretl in them no spirit of military 
ardor: there will merely l)e bred in them a sober spirit of readiness 
to defend peace and fend off war. to make good the ideals of America 
and the performance of all the groat tasks which she has set herself. 
And there will be also bred in them the spirit of obedience, the 
thought of the Nation, the consciousness of having some kind of 
personal connection with the great body politic which they profess 
as citizens to serve; and there will be in them great fountains of 
sober sentiment v.hich will affect their neighbors as well as them- 
selves, and Americans will be a little less careless of the general 
interest of the Nation, a little less th<uightful of their own peculiar 
and selfish interest, and something of the old spirit of '76, v,'hich 
was not the spirit of aggression, but the spirit of love of country 
and pure and iindefiled patriotism, will grow stronger and stronger 
in this ccuntr}^ that we love. 

And so, my fellow citizens, vvhat T am pleading for with the utmost 
confidence is the revival of that great spirit of i)atriotism for which 
a hall like this stands as a symbol. I was saying the other night 
that it was a very interesting circumstance that we never hang a lad's 
yardstick up over the mantelpiece, but that we do hang his musket 
up when he is gone. Not because the musket stands for a finer thing 
than the yardstick in itself — it is a brutal thing to kill — but that the 
musket stood for the risk of life, for something greater than the lad's 
own self. It stood for infinite sacrifice to the point of death, and it 
is for that sentiment of willingness to die for something greater than 
ourselves that we hang the musket up over the mantelpiece, and in 
doing so make a sacred record of the high service of the family from 
which it sprang. 

It is for that reason that we erect buildings like this; it is for that 
reason that we make monuments to those who serve us; and when we 
summon the young men of this country to volunteer for brief train- 
ing every year in order that they may be a source of security to the 
Nation and its ideals, I know that the response will bring soniething 
more than a'few thousand youngsters in the field; it will bring the 
spirit of America back to self-consciousness, and we shall again know 
what'it is to belong to a country that throbs with a spirit of life that 
will arrest the attention of mankind. 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 23 

CLEVELAND, OHIO, JANUARY 29, 191G. 

Mr. President and Fi;i.u)w Citizens: I esteem it n real privllego 
to be in Cleveland aiiaiii and to atldress you uj)on the serious (jiies- 
tions of public policy which now confront us. I have not ^iven my- 
self this sort of pleasure very often since I have been President, for 
I hope that you have observed what my conc-eption of the ollice of 
PiesiiliMit is. I do not belie\e that, orilinarily speaUiiij;, it is a speech- 
niakiiiii- oilice. I liave found (he exactions ot" it su;"h that it was abso- 
lutely necessary for me to remain constantly in t(tuch with the daily 
changes of public business, and you so arran^'cd it that I should 
be I'resident at a time when there was a great deal of public busine.ss 
to remain in touch with. But the times are such, gentlemen, that it 
is necessary that we should take common counsel together retrardiiiir 
tliem. 

I suppose that this country has never found i(s(>lf l;efore in so 
singular a position. The present situation of the world would, only 
a twelvemonth ago, even after the Ein-oi)ean war had started, have 
setMiied incredible, and yet now the things that no man anticipated 
have happened. The titanic struggle continues. The dilliculties of 
the world's affairs accumulate. It was, of course, evident that this 
Mas taking place long before the present session of Congress assem- 
bled, but ( nly since the Congress assembled has it been possible to 
consider what we ought to do in the new circums-tances (;f the times. 
Congress can not know what to do unless the Nation knows what to 
do, and it seemed to me not only my privilege but my duty to go out 
and inform my fellow countrymen just what I understood the present 
situation to be. 

AVhat are the elements of the case? In the firsl place, and most 
obviously, two-thirds of the world are at war. It is not merely a 
European .struggle; nations in the Orient have become involved, as 
well as nations in the west, and everywhere there seems to be creep- 
ing even upon the nations disengaged the spirit and the threat of 
war. All the world outside of America is on fire. 

Do you wonder that men's imaginations take color from the 
situation? Do you wonder that there is a great reaction against 
war? Do you wonder that the passion for peace grows strongei- as 
the spectacle grows more tremendous and more overwhelming? 
Do you wonder, on the other hand, that men's sympathies become 
deejily engaged on the one side or the other? For no small things 
are happening. This is a struggle which will determine the history 
of the world, I dare say, for more than a century to come. The 
world will never be the same again after this war is over. The 
change may be for weal or it may be for woe, but it will be funda- 
mental and tremendous. 

And in the meantime we, the jXHtple of the I'nited Slates, are the 
one great disengaged i)ower. the one neutral power, fiutling it ex- 
ceedingly diflicult to be neutral, because, like men everywhere else, 
we are human: we have the deep passions of mankind in us; we have 
symjiathies that are as easily stirred as the sympathies of any other 
l)eoi)le; we have interests which we see being drawn slowly into the 
maelstrom of this tremendous upheaval. It is very dilHcult for us 
to hold oft' and look with cool judgment upon such stupendous 
matters. 



24 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

And yet atg have held off. It has not been easy for the Govern- 
ment at Washington to avoid the entanglements which seemed to beset 
it on every side. It has needed a great deal of watchfulness and an 
unremitting patience to do so, but all the while no American could 
fail to be aware that America did not wish to become engaged, that 
she wished to hold apart; not because she did not perceive the issues 
of the struggle, but because she thought her duties to be the duties of 
peace and ^f separate action. And all the while the nations them- 
selves that were engaged seemed to be looking to us for some sort 
of action, not hostile in character but sympathetic in character. 
Hardly a single thing has occurred in Europe which has in any 
degree shocked the sensibilities of mankind that the Government of 
the United States has not been called upon by the one side or the 
other to protest and intervene with its moral in'flu.ence, if not with its 
physical force. It is as if we were the great audience before whom 
this stupendous drama is being played out, and we are asked to 
comment upon the turns and crises of the plot. And not only are 
we the audience, and challenged to be the umpire so far as the 
opinion of the world is concerned, but all the while our own life 
toucl^es these matters at many points of vital contact. 

The United States is trying to keep up the processes of peaceful 
commerce while all the world is at war and while all the world is in 
need of the essential things which the United States produces, and 
yet by an oversight for which it is difficult to forgive ourselves we 
'did not provide ourselves when there was proper peace and oppor- 
tunity with a mercantile marine, by means of which we could carry 
the commerce of the world without the interference of the motives 
of other nations which might be engaged in controversy not our own; 
and so the carrying trade of the world is for the most part in the 
hands of the nations now embroiled in this great struggle. Ameri- 
cans have gone to all quarters of the world, Americans are serving 
the business of the world in every part of it, and every one of these 
men when his affairs touch the regions that are on fire is our ward, 
and we must see to his rights and that they are respected. Do yon 
not see how all the sensitive places of our life touch these great dis- 
turbances? 

Now in the midst of all this, what is it that we are called on to do 
as a nation? I suppose that from the first America has had ono 
peculiar and particular mission in the world. Other nations have 
grown rich, my fellow citizens, other nations have been as powerful 
as we in material resources in comparison with the other nations of 
the world, other nations have built up empires and exercised domin- 
ion; we are not peculiar in any of these things, but we are peculiar 
in this, that from the first we have dedicated our force to the service 
of justice and righteousness and peace. We have said, "Our chief 
interest is not in the rights of property but in the rights of men; 
our chief interest is in the spirits of men that they might be free, 
that thev might enjoy their lives unmolested so long as they observed 
the just" rules of the game, that they might deal with their fellow- 
men with their heads erect, the. subjects and servants of no man; 
the servants only of the principles upon which their lives rested." 
And America has done more than care for her own people and thmk 
of her own fortunes in these great matters. She has said ever since 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 25 

the time of Prosidoiit Monroe tliat slic wns the cluimpion of tlio free- 
dom iiiul the sepai'ate soveiei':;nty of peoples lliroii<j;l»oiit the Western 
Ileniisphei'e. She is trustee for llies(> iih-als ami she is pledged, 
deeply and permanently pledji;ed. to lci>ep these monu'ntoiis promises. 

She not only. tiuMvrore, nuist play her part in lv(H'|)inf:; this conlla- 
gration from s[)iTa(lin<j; to the people of the United States; she must 
also kei'p this conlla^ration from spreading on this side of the sea. 
These are matters in whieh our very life and our \vhole pride ar(^ 
emhetlded and rooted, and we can never draw back from them. And 
3. my fellow citizens, because of the extraordinary ollice with which 
you have intrusted me, must, whether 1 will or not, be your respon- 
sible s])okesman in these great matters. It is my duty, therefore, 
when impressions are deeply borne in upon me with regard to the 
national welfare to speak to you with the utmost frankness aliout 
ihem. and that is the errand upon wiiich I ha\e come away friuu 
AVashington. 

For m\' own i)art, T am sori-y that these things fall within the year 
of a national political camjiaign. They ought to have nothing what- 
ever to do with politics. The man who brings partisan feeling into 
tliese matters and seeks ])artisan advantage by means of them is 
unworthy of your confidence. I am sorry that upon the eve of a 
cam])aign we should be obliged to discuss tiiese things, for fear they 
might run over into the campaign and seem to constitute a part of it. 
Let us forget that this is a year of national elections. That is neither 
liere nor thei'e. The thing to do now is for all men of all parties to 
think along the same lines and do the same things and forget every 
ditl'erence that may have divided them. 

And what ought they to do? In the lirst place, they ought to tell 
the truth. There have been some extraordinary exaggerations both 
of the military weakness and the military strength of this country. 
Some men tell you that we have no means of defense and others tell 
you that we have sufficient means of defense, and neither statement is 
tiaie. Take, for example, the matter of our coast defenses. It is 
obvious to every man that they are of the most vital importance to the 
country. Such coast defenses as we have are strong and admii-able, 
but we have not got coast defenses in enough jdaces. Their quality is 
;'dmirable, but their (piantity is insulTicient. The military authorities 
of this countr}' have not been negligent; they ha\e sought aih.Mpiate 
aj^pi-opriations from Congress, and in most instances have obtained 
ihem. so far as we saw the woi-k in hand that it was necessary to do, 
and the woi-k that they have done in the use of these appro|)riations 
has been admirable and skillful work. Do not let anybody deceive 
you into sui)posing that the Army of the United States, so far as it 
has had op]:)ortunity. is in any degree unworthy of your confidence. 

And the Xavy of the United States. You have been told that it is 
the secoiul in stivm'th in the world. T am sorry to say that experts 
do not agree with those who tell you that. Keckoning by its actual 
strenirth, I believe it to be one of the most eflicient navies in the 
world, but in strength it ranks fourth, not second. You must reckon 
with the fact that it is necessary that that should he our first arm of 
defense, and you ought to insist that everything should be done that 
it is possible for us to do to bring the Navy up to an adequate stand- 
ard of strength and efficiency. 
II. Doc. S0,3. ('.4-1 4 



26 ADDRESSES OF PEESIDEl<rT WILSOK. 

"Wlierc we are cliiefly lacking in preparation is on land and in the 
number of men who are ready to fight. Not the number of fighting 
men, but the number of men Avho are ready to fight. Some men are 
born troublesome, some men have trouble thrust upon them, and 
other men acquire trouble. I think I belong to the second class. But 
the characteristic desire of America is not that she should have a 
great body of men whose chief business is to fight, but a great bod.y of 
men who know how to fight and are ready to fight when anything 
that is dear to the Nation is threatened. You might have what we 
have, millions of men who had never handled arms of war, who are 
mere material for shot and powder if you put them in the field, and 
America would be ashamed of the inefficiency of calling such men to 
defend the Nation. What we want is to associate in training with 
the Army of the United States men who will volunteer for a suffi- 
cient length of time every year to get a rudimentary acquaintance 
Avith arnis, a rudimentary skill in handling them, a rudimentary ac- 
quaintance with camp life, a rudimentary acquaintance with military 
drill and discipline; and we ought to see to it that we have men of 
that sort in sufficient number to constitute an initial army when we 
need an army for the defense of the country. 

I have heard it stated that there are probably several million men 
in this country who have received a sufficient amount of military 
drill either here or in the countries in which they were born and 
from which they have come to us. Perhaps there are, nobody knows, 
because there is no means of counting them ; but if there are so many, 
they are not obliged to come at our call; we do not know who they 
are. That is not military preparation. Military preparation con- 
sists in the existence of such a body of men known to the Federal 
authorities, organized provisionally" by the Federal authorities, and 
subject by their own choice and will to the immediate call of the 
Federal authorities. 

We have no such body of men in the United States except the Na- 
tional Guard. Now, I have a very 'great respect for the National 
Guard. I have been associated with one section of that guard in 
one of the great States of the Union, and I know the character of 
the officers and the quality of the men, and I would trust them un- 
hesitatingly both for skill and for efficiency, but the whole National 
Guard of the United States falls short of 130,000 men. It is char- 
acterized by a very great variety of discipline and efficiency as be- 
tween State and State, and it is 'by the Constitution itself put under 
authority of more than two score State executives. The President of 
the United States has not the right to call on these men except in 
the case of actual invasion, and, therefore, no matter how skillful 
they are, no matter how ready they are, they are not the instruments 
for immediate National use. I "believe that the Congress of the 
United States ought to do, and that it will do, a great deal more for 
the National Guard than it ever has done, and everything ought to 
be done to make it a model military arm. 

But that is not the arm that we are immediately interested in. 
We are interested in making certain that there are men all over the 
United States prepared, equipped, and ready to go out at the call of 
the National Government upon the shortest possible notice. You 
will ask me, " Why do you say the shortest possible notice ? " Be- 
cause, gentlemen, let me tell you very solemnly you can not afford 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WIF.SON. 27 

to postpone this thini^. I do not know wlmt a sinirlo day ni;iy hfinj^ 
forth. I (h) not wish to loave yon with the impression that I am 
thinkin*:: of some pai'ticnlni- (hin<j:or; I merely want to leave yon with 
this solenni impression, that I know (hat we aie daily tieadinj? 
amidst the most inti'icate (lanp;eis, and that the dan<^ers lliat we are 
treadinjj: amon<;st are not of oni* making and are not undei- onr 
control, and that no man in the United States knows what a sin;j:lo 
week or a sinjjle day or a sinj^le hour may hrinj]; forth. These ai"C 
solemn things to say to yon but I would be unworthy of my oflico 
if I did not come out and tell you with absolute frankness just ex- 
actly what I understand the situation to be. 

I do not wish to hurry the Congress of the United States. These 
things are too important to be put through without \ery thorough 
sifting and debate and I am not in the least jealous of any of the 
searching piocesses of discussion. That is what free people ai'e for, 
to understand what they are about and to do what they wish to do 
only if the}' understand what they are about. But it is impossible 
to discuss the details of plans in great bodies, unorganized bodies, 
of men like this audience, for example. All that I can do in this 
presence is to tell you what I know of the necessities of the case, and 
to ask you to stand biick of the executive authorities of the United 
States in urging upon those who make our laws as early and efl'ective 
action as possible. 

America is not afraid of anybody. I know that I express yonr 
feeling and the feeling of all our fellow citizens when I say that 
the only thing I am afraid of is not being ready to perform my duty. 
I am afraid of the danger of shame: I am afraid of the danger of 
inadequacy; i am afraid of the danger of not being able to express 
the great character of this country with tremendous might and 
effectiveness whenever we are called upon to act in the field of the 
world's affairs. 

P'or it is character Ave are going to express, not power merely. The 
United States is not in love with the aggressive use of power. It 
despises the aggressive use of power. There is not a foot of territory 
belonging to any other Nation which this Nation covets or desires. 
There is not a privilege which we ourselves enjoy that we would 
dream of denying any other nation in the world. If there is one 
thing that the American people love and believe in more than an- 
other it is peace and all the handsome things that belong to peace. 
I hope that you will bear me out in saying that I have proved that I 
am a ])artisan of peace. I would be ashamed to be belligerent and 
imjiatient when the fortunes of my whole country and the happiness 
of all my fellow countrymen were involved. But I know that peace 
is not always within the choice of the Nation, and I want to remind 
yon, and remind you very solemnly, of the double obligation you 
have laid upon me. I know yon have laid it upon me because I 
am constantly reminded of it in conversation, by letter, in editorial, 
by means of every voice that comes to me out of the body of the 
Nation. You have laid upon me this double ol)ligation: ''We are 
relying n]:)on you, ]\Ir. President, to keep us out of this war, but we 
are relying upon you, Mr. President, to keep the honor of the 
Nation unstained."' 

Do yon not see that a time may come when it is inipossil)le to do 
both of these things? Do yon not see that if I am to guard the honor 



28 ADDRESSES OF PEESIDENT WILSON. 

of the Nation, I am not protecting it against itself, for we are not 
going to do anything to stain the honor of our own country. I am 
protecting it ag-ainst things that I cannot control, the action of others. 
And where the action of others may l)ring ns I cannot foretell. You 
may count upon my heart and resolution to keep you out of the war, 
but you must be ready if it is necessary that I should maintain your 
honor. That is the only thing a real man loves about himself. Some 
men who are not real men love other things about themselves, but the 
real man believes that his honor is dearer than his life; and a nation 
is merely all of us put together, and the Nation's honor is dearer 
than the Nation's comfort and the Nation's peace and the Nation's 
life itself. So that we must know what we have thrown into the 
balance; we must know the infinite issues which are impending every 
day of the year, and Avhen we go to bed at night and when we rise in 
the morning, and at every interval of the rush of business, Ave must 
remind ourselves that we are part of a great body politic in which 
are vested some of the highest hopes of the human race. 

Why is it that all nations turn to us with the instinctive feeling 
that if anything touches luimanity it touches us? Because it knows 
that ever since we were born as a Nation we have undertaken to be the 
champions of humanity and of the rights of men. Without that ideal 
there would be nothing that would" distinguish America from her 
predecessors in the history of nations. Why is it that men who loved 
liberty have crowded to these shores? Why is it that we greet them 
as they enter the great harbor at New York with that majestic 
Statue of Liberty holding up a torch whose visionary beanns are 
meant to spread abroad over the waters of the world, and to say to 
all men, " Come to America where mankind is free and where we love 
all the works of righteousness and of peace." 



AUDITORIUM, MILWAUKEE, WIS., JANUARY 31, 1916. 

Mr. Chairman and Fellow Citizens : I need not inquire whether 
the citizens of Milwaukee and Wisconsin are interested in the sub- 
ject of my errand. The presence of this great body in this vast hall 
sufficiently attests your interest, but I want at the outset to remove 
a misapprehension that I fear may exist in your mind. There is no 
sudden crisis; nothing new has happened; I am not out upon this 
errand because of any unexpected situation. I have come to confer 
with you upon a matter upon vfhicli it would, in any circumstances, 
be necessary for us to confer when all the rest of the world is on fire 
and our own house is not fireproof. Everywhere the atmosphere of 
the world is thrilling with the passion of a disturbance such as the 
Avorld has never seen before, and it is wise, in the words just uttered 
by your chairman, that we should see that our own house is set in. 
order and that everything is done to make certain that we shall not 
suffer by the general conflagration. 

There were some dangers to which this Nation seemed at the outset 
of the war to be exposed, which, I think I can say with confidence, 
are now passed and overcome. America has drawn her blood and 
her strength out of almost all the nations of the world. It is true 
of a great many of us that there lies deep in our hearts the recollec- 
tion of an origin which is not American. We are aware that our 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 29 

roots, our trnditions, iiin back into otlicr national soils. There arc* 
songs that stir us; tluMo arc some far-away historical ivcol lections 
which enaajro our all'ections and stir our nicrnoi'ies. AVe can not forj^et 
our forhcars; we can not allo*'('thci' ignore the fad of our essential 
blood relationship; and at the outset of this war it did looU as if ther-o 
were a division of doniestic sentiini'ut which mi<iht lead us to sonio 
errors of juiluiucnt and some ci-rors of action; but I, for one, Ijclievo 
that that dauber is passed. I never doubted that tjie dan^^'cr wms 
cxairgeratetl, because I had learned long ago, and numy of you will 
corroborate me by your experience, that it is not the men who arc 
doing the talking always who represent the real sentiments of the 
Nation. I for my part always feel a serene conhdeuce in waiting 
for the declaration of the principles and sentiments of the men who 
are not vociferous, do not g<i about seeking to nuike trouble, do 
their own tliinking, attend to their own business, and lo\e the!!- own 
country. 

I have at no time supposed that the men whose voices secmeil to 
contain the threat of division amongst us were really uttering 
the sentiments even of those whom they pretended to' represent. 
I for my part have no jealousy of family sentiment. I have no 
jealousy of that deep atl'ection which runs l)ack through long lineage. 
It would be a pity if we forget the fine things that our ancestors 
have done. But I also know the magic of America; I also know 
the great principles which thrill men in the singular body politic 
to which we belong in the United States. 1 know the impulses 
which have drawn men to our shores. They have not come idly; 
they have not come without conscious purpose to be free; they have 
not come without voluntary desire to unite themselves with the great 
nation on this side of the sea; and I know that whenever the test 
comes every man's heart will be first for America. It was principle 
and alfection and ambition and hope that drew men to these shores, 
and they are not going to forget the errand upon which they came 
and allow America, the home of their refuge and hope, to sutler by 
any forgetfulness on their part. And so the trouble makers have 
shot their bolt, and it has been ineffectual. Some of them have been 
vociferous; all of them have been exceedingly irresjionsible. 'i'alk 
was cheap, and that was all it cost them. They did not have to do 
anything. But you will know without my telling you that the man 
who for the time being you have chai'ged with the duties of Presi- 
dent of the United States must talk with a deep sense of resi)onsi- 
bility, and he must remember, above all things else, the fine tradi- 
tions of his office which some men seem to have forgotten. There is 
no precedent in American history for anv action of aggression on 
the part of the United States or for any action which might mean that 
America is seeking to connect herself with the controversies on the 
other side of the water. Men who seek to provoke us to such action 
have foi'gotten the traditions of the United States, but it behooves 
those with whom you have entrusted ollice to remember the traditions 
of the United States and to see to it that the actions of the (Jovern- 
ment are made to square with tho.se traditions. 

But there are other dangers, mv fellow citizens, which are not 
past and which have not been overcome, and they are dangers 
which we can not control. We can control irresponsible talkers 
amidst ourselves. All we have irot to do is to encoura<re them to 



30 ADDRESSES OF TEESTDEN-T WILSOIST. 

hire a hnll and their folly will he ahnndantly advertised by them- 
selves. But we can not in this simijle fashion control the dangers 
that surround us now and have surrounded us since this titanic 
struggle on the other side of the water began. I say on the other 
side^^of the water; you will ask me, "On the other side of which 
water," for this great struggle has extended to all quarters of the 
globe. There is no continent outside, I was about to say, of this 
Western Hemisphere which is not touched with it, but I recollected as 
I began the sentence that a part of our own continent yvas touched with 
it, because it involves our neighbors to the north in Canada. There 
is no part of the world, except South America, to which the direct 
influences of this struggle have not extended, so that now we are com- 
pletely surrounded by this tremendous distrubance and you must 
realize what that involves. 

Our thoughts are concentrated upon our own affairs and our 
own relations to the rest of the world, but the thoughts of the men 
who are engaged in this struggle are concentrated upon the struggle 
itself, and there is daily and hourly danger that they will feel 
themselves constrained to do things which are absolutely inconsistent 
with the rights of the United States. They are not thinking of us. 
I am not criticising them for not thinking of us. I dare say if I 
were in their place neither would I think of us. They believe that 
they are struggling for the lives and honor of their nations, and 
that if the United States puts its interests in the path of this great 
struggle, she ought to know beforehand that there is danger of 
A^ery serious misunderstanding and difficulty. So that the very 
uncalculating, unpremeditated, one might almost say accidental, 
course of affairs may touch us to the quick at any moment, ancl I 
want you to realize that, standing in the midst of these difficulties, 
1 feel that I am charged with a double duty of the utmost difficulty. 
In the first place, I know that you are depending upon me to keep 
this Nation out of the war. So far I have done so, and I pledge 
you my word that, God helping me, I will if it is possible. But 
you have laid another duty upon me. You have bidden me see to it 
that nothing stains or impairs the honor of the United States, and 
that is a matter not Avithin my control; that depends upon what 
others do, not upon what the Government of the United States does. 
Therefore there may at any moment come a time when I can not 
preserve both the honor arid the peace of the United States. Do 
not exact of me an impossible and contradictory thing, but stand 
ready and insistent that everybody who represents you should stand 
ready to provide the necessary means for maintaining the honor of 
the United States. 

I sometimes think that it is true that no people ever Avent to war 
Avith another people. Governments have gone to Avar Avith one 
another. Peoples, so far as I remember, have not, and this is a 
government of the people, and this people is not going to choose war. 
But Ave are not dealing Avith people; we are dealing Avith GoA'ern- 
ments. AVe are dealing Avith Governments noAv engaged in a great 
struggle, and therefore we do not knoAv Avhat a day or an hour Avill 
bring forth. All that Ave knoAv is the character of our OAvn duty. 
We do not Avant the (juestion of peace and Avar, or the conduct of Avar, 
entrusted too entirely to our Government. We Avant Avar, if it must 



Al)l)Ki;.--SK.-. (H.' I'lUiSlDKN 1 WIISON. 31 

coiue, to be souiothiiifi: that sprinp^s out of tlu- siMiliintMits and i)i'in- 
ciplcs and actions ol" tlic people tlieinsehcs; and it is on that at'cotnit 
that I am connselino- tlio Congress of the United States not to take 
the advice of those wlio reconnnend that \vc shonhl have, and have 
very soon, a ^reat standing; Army, bnt. on the contrary, to see to it 
that tlie citizens of this country are so trained. and that the military 
ecpiipment is so sulliciently i)rovi(UHl for them that when they choose 
they can take \\\) arms and defend themsehes. 

The Constitution of thi> United States makes the President the 
Connnander in (^hief of the Army ami Navy of the Nation, hut I 
do not want a bi<>: Army sultject to my personal conmiand. If dan«j:er 
comes, I want to turn to yon and the rest of my fellow counti'ynien 
and say, "Men, are you ready ^ "' and I know what the response will 
be. I know that tliere will sjH'ing up out of the body of the Nation 
a great host of free men, and I want those men not to be mere tai'pets 
for shot and shell. I want them to know somethinfr of the arms they 
have in their hands. I want them to know somethin*; about how to 
guard against the diseases that creep into camjjs. where men arc 
unaccustomed to live. I want them to know something of what tiic 
orders mean that they Avill be under when they enlist under arms 
for the Government of the United States. I want them to be men 
who can comprehend and easily and intelligently step into the duty 
of national defense. That is the reason that I am urging upon the 
Congress of the United States at any rate the beginnings of a sys- 
tem by which we may give a very considerable body of our fellow 
citizens the necessary training. 

I have not forgotten the great National Guard of this country, 
but in this country of one hundred million i)eople thei-e are only 
129,000 men in the National Guard; and the National Gmird. fine aH 
it is, is not subject to the orders of the President of the United 
States. It is subject to the orders of the governors of the several 
States, and the Constitution itself says that the President has no 
right to withdraw them fi-om their States even, except in the case 
of actual invasion of the soil of the United States. I want the Con- 
gress of the United States to do a great deal for the National (Juard, 
but I do not see how the Congress of the United States can j^ut the 
National Guard at the disposal of the national authorities. There- 
fore it seems to me absobitely necessary that in addition to the 
National Guard there should be a considerable i)ody of men with 
some training in the military art who will have pledged themselves 
to come at the call of the Nation. 

I have been told by those who have a greater knack at guessing 
statistics than I have that there are probably several million men in 
the United States who, either in this country or in other countries 
from which they have come to the United States, have i-eceived 
training in arms. It may be; I do not know, and I susi)ect that they 
do not either, but even if it be true, these men are not subject to the 
call of the Federal Government. They would have to be found; 
they would have to be induced to enlist; they would have to be 
organized; their numbers are indefinite; and they would have to be 
equipped. Such are not the materials which we need. We want to 
know who these men are and where they are and to have everything 



32 ADDRESSES OF PEESIDEISTT WILSOK. 

ready for them if they should come to onr assistance. For ^ve have 
now got dovrn, not to the sentiment of national defence, but to the 
business of national defence. It is a business proposition and it must 
be treated as such. And there are abundant precedents for the pro- 
posals which have been made to the Congress. Even that arch-Demo- 
crat, Thomas Jefferson, believed that there ought to be compulsory 
military training for the adult men of the Nation, because he be- 
lieved, as every true believer in democracy believes, that it is upon 
the voluntary action of the men of a great Nation like this that 
it must depend for its military force. 

There is another misapprehension that I want to remote from 
your minds : Do not think that I have come to talk to you about these 
things because I doubt whether they are going to be done or not. 
I do not doubt it for a moment, but t believe that when great things 
of this sort ai'e going to be done the people of this country are en- 
titled to know just what is being proposed. As a friend of mine says, 
I am not arguing with you; I am telling you. I am not trying to 
convert 3'ou to anything, because I know that in your hearts you are 
converted already, but I want you to know the motives of what is 
proposed and the character of what is proposed, in order that we 
should have only one attitude and counsel with regard to this great 
matter. 

It is being very sedulously spread abroad in this country that the 
impulse back of all this is the desire of men who make the materials 
of warfare to get money out of the Treasury of the United States. 
I wash the people that say that could see meetings like this. Did you 
come here for that purpose? Did you come here because you are in- 
terested to see some of your fellow citizens make money out of the 
present situation? Of course you did not. I am ready to admit that 
probably the equipment of those men whom we are training will 
have to be bought from somebody, and I know that if the equipment 
is bought, it will have to be paid for; and I dare say somebody will 
make some money out of it. It is also true, ladies and gentlemen, 
that there are men now, a great many men, in the belligerent countries 
who are growing rich out" of the sale of the materials needed by the 
armies of those countries. If the Government itself does not manu- 
facture everything that an army needs, somebody has got to make 
money out of it, and I for my part have been urging the Congress 
of the United States to make' the necessary preparations by which 
the Government can manufacture armor plate and munitions, so 
that, being in the business itself and having the ability to manufac- 
ture all it needs, if it is put upon a business basis, it can at any 
rate keep the price that it pays within moderate and reasonable 
limits. The Government of the United States is not going to be im- 
posed upon by anybody, and you may rest assured, therefore, that 
Avhile I believe you prefer that private capital and private initiative 
should bestir themselves in these matters, it is also possible, and I 
assure you that it is most likely, that the Government of the United 
States will have adequate means of controlling this matter very 
thoroughly indeed. There need be no fear on that side. Let nobody 
suppose that this is a money-making agitation. I would for one be 
ashamed to be such a dupe as to be engaged in it if it had any sus- 
picion of that about it, but I am not as innocent as I look ; and I be- 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 33 

lieve that T can say for my eolleagtios in ^^'aslliIll^t<)ll thai tlicy are 
just as wjitchi'iil in such iiiattci-s as you woulil dcsiri' theiu to Ix'. 

And theio is another misapprehension that I (h) not wish you to 
entertain. Do not suppose tliat theie is any new or sU(UIen or reeent 
inadecjuacy on the part of this (Joverinnent in respect of |)repar5i- 
tion for national defense. I have heaid some gentlemen say that 
Ave had no coast defenses woi-th talking aljout. Coast defenses arc 
not nowachivs advertised, you undei'stand, and they are not visible 
to the naked e3'e, so that if yon passed them and nothinii: e.\pU)de<l, 
vou would not Icnow they were there. The coast defenses of the 
United States, while not numerous enough, are ecjuipped in the most 
modern and eiiicient fashion. You are told that there has heen some 
sort of neglect about the Navy. There has not been any sort of 
neglect about the Navy. We have been slowly building up a Navy 
Avhich in (juality is second to no navy in the worUI. The only thing 
it lacks is (juantity. In size it is the fourth navy in the world, 
though I have heard it said by some gentlemen in this very region 
that it was the second. In fighting force, though not in (juality, it 
is reckoned by experts to be the fourth in rank in the world; aiul yet 
when I go on board those ships and see their equipment and talk 
"with their officers I suspect that they could give an account of them- 
selves which would raise them above the fourth class. It reminds 
inc of that very quaint saying of the old darky preacher, '* The Lord 
says unto Moses, come fourth, and he came fifth and lost the race." 
Biit I think this Navy would not come fourth in the race, but higher. 

What we are iirojjosing now is not the sudden creation of a Navy, for 
we have a splendid Navy, but the definite workin'r out of a program 
by which within five years we shall bring the ^av}' to a fighting 
strength which otherwise might have taken eight or ten years; along 
exactly the same lines of development that have been followed and 
followed diligently and intelligently for at least a decade past. 
There is no sudden panic, there is no sudden change of plan: all 
that has happened is that we now see that we ought more rapidly 
and more thoroughly than ever before to do the things which have 
always been characteristic of America. For she has always been 
proud of her Navy and has always been addicted to the princijile 
that her citizenship must do the fighting on land. AA'e are working 
cut American principle a little faster, l)ecause American pulses are 
beating a little faster, because the world is in a whirl, because there 
ai'e incalculable elements of trouble abroad which we cannot control 
or alter. I would lie derelicit to the duty which you have laid upon 
me if I did not tell you that it was absolutely necessary to carry out 
our princii)les in this matter now antl at once. 

And yet all the time, my fellow citizens, I believe that in these 
things we are merely interpreting the spirit of America. AVho shall 
say what the spirit of America is? I have many times heard oi-ators 
ajiostrophize this beautiful flag which is the emldem of the Nation. 
I have many times heard orators and i)hilosophers s])eak of the sjjirit 
which was resident in America. I have always for my own pail felt 
that it was an act of audacity to attempt to characterize anything of 
that kind, and when I have been outside of the country in foreign 
lands and have been asked if this, that, or the other was trut* of 
America I have habitually said, ''Nothing stated in general terms is 

H. Doc. S03, Gl-l 5 



34 ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

triio of America, because it is the most variegated and varied and 
multifonn land under the sun." Yet I know that if you turn away 
from the i)hysical aspects of the country, if you turn away from the 
variety of the strains of blood that make up our i^reat popuhition, if 
you turn away from the great variations of occupation and of interest 
among our fellow citizens, there is a spiritual unity in America. I 
know that there are some things which stir every heart in America, 
no matter what the racial derivation or the local environment, and 
one of the things that stirs every American is the love of individual 
liberty. We do not stand for occupations. We do not stand for ma- 
terial interests. We do not stand for any narrow conception even of 
political institutions; but we do stand for this, that we are banded 
together in America to see to it that no man shall serve any master 
who is not of his own choosing. And we have been very liberal and 
generous about this idea. We have seen great peoples, for the most 
part not of the same blood with ourselves, to the south of us build up 
jiolities in which this same idea pulsed and was regnant, this idea of 
free institutions and individual liberty, and when we have seen hands 
reached across the water from older political polities to interfere 
Avith the development of free institutions on the Western Hemisj^here 
we have said: " No; we are the champions of the freedom of popular 
sovereignty wherever it displays or exercises itself throughout both 
Americas." We are the champions of a particular sort of freedom, 
the sort of freedom which is the only foundation and guarantee of 
peace. 

Peace lies in the hearts of great inclustrial and agricultural popu- 
lations, and we have arranged a government on this side of the 
water by which their preferences and their predilections and their 
interests are the mainsprings of government itself. And so wdien 
we prepare for national defense we prepare for national political 
integrity; we prepare to take care of the great ideals which gave 
birtii to' this Government; we are going back in spirit and in energy 
to those great first generations in America, when men banded them- 
selves together, though they were but a handful upon a single coast 
of the Atlantic, to set up in the Avorld the standards which have ever 
since floated everywhere that Americans asserted the poAver of their 
Government. As I came along the line of the railway to-day, I was 
touched to observe that everywhere, upon every railway station, upon 
every house, where a flag could be procured, some temporary stand- 
ard had been raised from which there floated the stars and stripes. 
They seemed to have diviiied the errand upon which I had come, to 
remind you that Ave must subordinate eA^ery individual interest and 
eA-ery local interest to assert once more, if it should be necessary to 
assert them, the great principles for Avhich that flag stands. 

Do not deceive yourseh^es, ladies and gentlemen, as to where the 
colors of that flag came from. Those lines of red are lines of blood, 
nobly and unselfishly shed by men Avho loved the liberty of their fellow 
men more than they loved tbeir oAvn lives and fortunes. God forbid 
that Ave should have to use the blood of America to freshen the color 
of that flag; but if it should ever be necessary again to assert the 
majesty and integrity of those ancient and honorable principles, that 
flag Avill be colored once more, and in being colored Avill be glorified 
and purified. 



AOUKESSHS t)F PRKSIDENI W 11 SON. 35 

AUDITORIUM, CHICAGO, ILL., JANUARY :'.!, lOHi. 

Mr. C^iiAiioiAN AM) Fkllow CiTizKNs: You put luc iMidi'i- a jrroat 
obligation to you by the ujenorosity of your rcccptiou, and 1 aiu (|uite 
aware that it is birgoly because you know how ile.-^irous I am to 
speak to you with the utuiost frankne.^s upon some of the most essen- 
tial issues of our national life. The Constitution of the United 
States explicitly lays upon the President the duty of reportin;^ at the 
bcirinninj:: of each annual scs-ion of Coufiress to the ri'[)re>entatives 
of the people concerninji; the state of the Union, and it seems to me 
that it is a very natural inference from that connnand that the 
President should from time to time, when unusual circumstances 
arise, nuike his report, so far as it is possible for him to do so, 
directly to the people themselves. It is with that conception in view 
that I "have taken the liberty of cominfr to you to-night. I have not 
])ermitted myself the privilege of leaving my duties at Washington 
very often, because they have been very exacting and very anxious 
duties, and there is a very clear sense in which it is my duty to be 
constantly there and constantly watchful of the changitijL; cirfum- 
stances of the day; but I thought you would feel me justilietl in the 
unusual circumstances of the time if I left my duties there for a little 
while and came to explain a few matters to you. 

A jear ago, though the war in Europe had then been six months in 
progress, I take it it would have seemed incredible to all of us that 
the storm should continue to gether in intensity instead of spending 
its force. I suppose that twelve months ago no one could have 
predicted the extraordinary way in which the violence of the 
Struggle has increased from 'month to month; and the dirticulties in- 
volved by reason of that war have also increased beyond all calcula- 
tion. A year ago it did seem as if America might rest secure without 
A'ery great anxiety and take it for granted that she wt)uld not be drawn 
into this terrible inaelstrom. but those first six months was merely the 
beginning of the struggle. Another year has been added, and now no 
mail can confidently say whether the United States will be drawn 
into the struggle or not. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that 
we should take counsel together as to what it is necessary that we 
should do. The circumstances of the day are so extraordinai-y that 
perhajis it is not prudent for a man upon whom the resj)onsibility 
of ail'airs is laid to know too particularly the details of what is hap- 
pening. The trouble with a great many of our fellow citizens is 
that they have let their imaginations become so engaged in this 
terrible aflair that they cannot look upon it as those should who wish 
to keep a cool head and a detached juilgment. So many inen on this 
side of the water are seeing red that we seem to sec in their thoughts 
the reflection of the blood that is being spent so copiously on the 
other side of the sea. It is not wise for us to let our thoirghts beeomc 
so deeply involved that we eannot think scjiarately and must think 
with a sort of personal immersion in this great struggle. 

I must admit to you very franklv that I have been careful to re- 
frain from reading the details in the newspaper reports. I wish to 
see the thing and realize it cnly in its large aspects and to keep my 
thoughts concentrated on America, her (luty, her circumstances, her 
tasks. And her tasks have been verv dillicult. Tlu'y have not been 



36 ADDRESSES OF PEESIDENT WILSOISr. 

merely negative. Have yon not realized how all the world seems to 
have been constantly conscious from the beginning of this struggle 
that America was. so to saj', the only audience before whom this terri- 
ble plot was being worked out; how everybody engaged in the 
struggle has seemed to turn to America for moral judgments con- 
cerning it; how each side in the titanic struggle has appealed to 
us to adjudge their enemies in the wrong; how there has been no 
tragical turn in the course of events that America has not been called 
on for some sort of protest or expression of opinion? And so 
those of us who are charged with the responsibility of affairs have 
realized very intensely that there was a certain sense in which 
America was looked to to keep even the balance of the whole world's 
thought. 

And America Avas called upon to do .something very much more 
than that, even; profoundly difficult, if not impossible, thongh that 
be, she was called upon to assert in times of war the standards of 
times of peace. There is an old saying that the laws are silent in 
the presence of war. Alas, j^es; not only the civil laws of individual 
nations but also apparently the law that governs the relation of 
nations with one anotlier must at times fall silent and look on in dumb 
impotency. And yet it has been assumed throughout this struggle 
that the great principles of international law and of international 
comity had not been suspended, and the United States, as the greatest 
and most powerful of the disengaged nations, has been looked to 
to hold high the .standards which should govern tlie relationship of 
nations to each other. 

I know that on the other side of the water there has been a great 
deal of cruel misjudgment with regard to the reasons why America 
has remained neutral. Those who look at us at a distance, my fellow 
citizens, do not feel the strong pulses of ideal principle that are in 
us. They do not feel the conviction of America, that her mission is 
a mission of peace, and that righteousness can be maintained as a 
standard in the midst of arms. They do not realize that back of all 
our energ}'^ by which we have built up great material wealth and 
created great material power we are a body of idealists, much more 
ready to lay down our lives for a thought than for a dollar. They 
suppose, some of them, that we are holding off because we can make 
mone}' while others are dying, the most cruel misunderstanding that 
any nation has ever had to face; so wrong that it seems almost use- 
less to try to correct it, because it shows that the very fundamentals 
of our life are not comprehended and understood. 

I need not tell you, m}?^ fellow citizens, that we have not held off 
from this struggle from motives of self-interest, unless it be con- 
sidered self-interest to maintain our position as the trustees of the 
moral judgment of the world. AVe have believed, and I believe, that 
Ave can serve even the nations at war better by remaining at peace 
and holding off from this contest than we could possibly serve them 
in any other ^\HJ. Your interest, your sympathy, your affections 
may be engaged on the one side or the other, but no matter which 
side they are engaged on it is your duty even to your affections in this 
great affair to stand off and not let this Nation be drawn into the Avar. 
Somebody must keep the great stable foundations of the life of na- 
tions untouched and undisturbed. Somebody must keep the great 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WTLSON". ^7 

economic processes of tlio world of Imsincss :ilivo. Somebody must 
see to it tliiit we sinnd ready to reijair the enormous diimajre and the 
incaleidable losses whieh will ensue I'loni this war, and wliich it is 
hardly credible could be repaired if e\ery <!;reat nation in (lu' world 
were diawn iulo llu* eonlest. Do you reali/e how neai'ly it has come 
about that every <jfreat nation in the world has been di*awn in'? llu) 
llame has touehe(l even our own continent by drawiui; in our Cana- 
dian neii2:hbors to the north of us, and, except for the S( nth American 
Continent, there is not one continent upon the whole surface of the 
world to which this flame has not spread; and when 1 see some of my 
fellow citizens spread tinder whei'o the si)arks are fallin<if, 1 wondei' 
what their ideal of Americanism is. 

I dare say you realize, therefore, the soliMnnity of the feeling witli 
which T come to audiences of my fellow citizens at this time. I can 
not indulge the reckless pleasure of exprcssiu/i' my own i)ri\'ate o\)\\\- 
ions and prejudices. I speak as the trustee of the Nation, called upon 
to speak its solx^r judfrments and not its individual opinions; and 
it is with the feeling of this responsibility upon mc>jthat I have 
come to you to-night and have approached the other audiences that 
I have had the privilege of addressing upon this journey. Do you 
lealize the jieculiar dilliculty of the situation in which your Executive 
is ]daced ? You have laid upon me, not by implication, but explicitly — 
it has come to me by means of every voice that has been vocal in 
the Nation — you have laid upon me the double obligation of main- 
taining the honor of the United States and of maintaining the peace 
of the United States. Is it not conceivable that the two might be- 
come incompatible? Is it not conceivable that, however great our 
passion for peace, we would have to subordinate it to our passion for 
what is right? Is it not possible that in maintaining the integrity 
of the character of the United States it may become necessary to 
see that no man does that integrity too great violence? 

It is a very terril)le thing, ladies and gentlemen, to have the honor 
of the United States intrusted to your keeping. It is a great honor, 
that honor of the United States I In it runs the blood of generations 
of men Avho have built up ideals and institutions on this side of the 
water intended to regenerate mankind, and any man who does vio- 
lence to right, any nation that does violence to the principles of just 
international understandings, is doing violence to the ideals of the 
United States. "W'c observe the technical limits; we a.ssert the.so 
rights only Avhen our own citizens are directly affected, but you know 
that our feeling is just the same whether the rights of tho.se indi- 
vidual citizens are afl'ected or not, and that we feel all the concern 
of those who have built up things so great that they dare not let them 
be torn down or touched Avith }:)rofane hands. 

Look at the task that is assigned to the Ignited States, to assert tlie 
princijdes of law in a woidd in which the iirinciples of law have 
broken down — not the technical princii)les of law, but the essential 
principles of right dealing and humanity as between nation and 
nation. Law is a very complicated term. It includes a great many 
things that do not engage our affections, but at the basis of the 
things that we are now dealing Avith lie the deepest affections of the 
human heart, the love of life, the love of righteousness, the love of 
fair dealing, the love of thove things that are ju.-t and of good report. 



38 ADDEESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

The things that are rooted in our very spirit are the stuff of the hiw 
tliat I am talking about now. 

We may have to assert these principles of right and of humanity 
at any time. What means are available? "What force is at the 
disposal of the United States to assert these things? The force of 
opinion? Opinion, 1 am sorry to say, my fellow citizens, did not 
bring this war on, and I am afraid that opinion can not stay its 
progress. This war Avas brought on by rulers, not by the people; 
and I thank God that there is no man in America who has the 
authority to bring war on without the consent of the people. No 
man for many a year yet can trace the real sources of this war, 
but this thing-^ we know, that opinion did not bring it on and that 
the force of opinion, at any rate the force of American opinion, is 
not going to stop it. 

I "admire the hopeful confidence of those of our fellow citizens 
who believe that American opinion can stop it, but, being somewhat 
older than some of them, and having run through a rather wide 
gamut of experience, I am prevented from sharing their hopeful 
optimism. I vrould not belittle the influences of opinion, least of 
all the influences of American opinion — it is very influential — but it 
will not stop this overwhelming flood. And, if not the force of opin- 
ion, what force has America available to stop the flood from over- 
flowing her own fair area ? 

We have one considerable arm of force, a very considerable arm 
of force, namely, the splendid Navy of the United States. I am 
told by the experts, to whose judgment I must defer in tliese mat- 
ters, that the Navy of the United States, in respect of its enumerated 
force, ranks only fourth among the navies of the world. I indulge 
myself in the opinion that in quality it ranks very much higher 
than fourth place. The United States has never been negligent of 
its Navy, despite what some gentlemen may say; least of all has it 
been negligent in recent years. Three years ago there were 182 
vessels in commission in that Navy; there are now 238. Three dread- 
noughts and flfteen subordinate craft will be added within a month 
or two. There have been added six thousand capable sailors to the 
ranks of the enlisted men of that Navy. The Congress of the United 
StaJ.es in the last three years has poured out more money than was 
poured out on the average in any previous years in the history of 
the United States for the'maintenance and upbuilding of the United 
States Navy; has spent forty-four million dollars a year as con- 
trasted with a previous average of not more than thirty-three and a 
half million. All the subsidiary arms of the service have been built 
up. Three years ago there were four officers assigned the duty con- 
nected with aviation, and they did not have a single available — at 
any rate usable — craft at their service; now there are thirty-seven 
airships, 121 commissioned officers, and a large number of non- 
commissioned officers and a sufficient foi'ce of enlisted men in the 
school of practice at Pensacola ; and that is only the beginning, be- 
cause the Sixty-third Congress, the last Congress, was the first to 
make a speeitic appropriation for aviation in connection with the 
Navy. 

We have given to the present fleet of the TTnited States an organ- 
ization sucl) ns it novel- had before. T am told by Admiral Fletcher. 



ADDRESSES OP PRESIDENT WILSON. 39 

and wo linvo mado jiropai'adons for immediate war, so far ns tlie 
Navy is conctMiied. The trouble i.s not willi the (Hiality or the 
orpuiization of the existing Navy; it i.s merely that wf iiave fol- 
lowed i)laiis jjiecemeai, a little hit at a time, now in this direction, 
now in that direction; that we have never had a plan thought ont: 
to cover a numbi-r of years \<\ advance: that we have never set our- 
selves a delinite u'oal of e(iui|)nient and set our i-esolution to attain 
that goal within a reasonable length of time. The plans that are 
being i)roposed to the present Congress, and which the present 
Congress will adopt, are plans to remedy this piecemeal treatment 
of the Navy and bring it to its highest point of elliciency by steady 
plans carried out from month to month and year to year. It is 
going to cost a good deal of money, and 1 find that the difliculty 
with some Members of Congn^ss is, not what ought to be done about 
the Navy, but what they are going to tax in oivlei- to get the money. 
I do not happen to be a Member of Congress but I would be willing 
to go before any constituency in the United States in the conKdence 
that they were willing to pay for the defense of the Nation. We 
are neither poor not niggardly. We know how things cost and we 
intend to pay for them; and we do not intend to pay for them more 
than they are worth. 

That is a matter which is troubling a good many people. I have 
proposed to the Congress that for one thing we at once build our 
own arnn)r plant, not for the purpose of making all the armor that 
our ships need, unless that should become necessary, but for the pur- 
pose of keeping the price within sight. I have proposed to the 
Congress that Ave prepare to manufacture also the munitions which 
tlie Government may need — for the same purpose — not to drive other 
people out of business, but merely to serve other people with notice 
that if necessary we will manufacture all the munitions we need. 
We have had some experience in this matter. The Navy now makes 
a very large pro]-)ortion of its own powder. Before it began, it i)aid 
53 cents a pound for it, and noAV it pays 3G cents. That shows the 
very interesting effect of Government competition upon the price. 
So all along the line we mean business, and we are going to see that 
business characterizes the processes of national defense. We would 
not be Americans if we did not. 

But what Army have we available? I can tell you, because it 
has been necessary for us to take care of the patrolling of a very 
long southern border between us and ^lexico. We have not men 
enough in the United States Army for the routine work of peace, 
and the increase in the Regular Army that is being proposed to 
the present Congress is intended only to bring the Kegidar Army 
up to an adequate peace establishment. I say that that is all that is 
being proposed with regard to the Kegular Army. The United 
States has never, my fellow citizens, depended upon the Regular 
Army to conduct its wars. It has depended upon the Volunteers of 
the United States, and it has never been disappointed cither in their 
numbers or in their quality. But modern warfare is very different 
from what warfare used to be. Waifaie has changed so within the 
span of a single life tliat it is nothing less than brutal to send raw 
recruits into the trenches and into the field. I ani told by gentle- 
men who are very much more expert in knowing things that nobody 



40 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON 

else ivno\YS than I am that there are probably several million men 
in this country who have been trained to arms either in this country 
or in the country of their nativity. It maybe, but who has a list of 
them? Where are they? What law lays upon them the duty of 
comiuij: into the ranks of the armed forces of the United States if it 
should be necessary to call for volunteers? How are they organized? 
Who can i-each them? Who can command them? There might be 
several million men with that training, bu.t if they would not come 
upon the call they would be of no inunediate use to the United States. 

What we wish is a definite citizen reserve of men trained to arms 
to a sufficient extent to make them quickly transformable into a fight- 
ing force, organized under the immediate direction of the United 
States, subject to a definite pledge to serve the United States, and 
pledged to obey immediately the call of the President when Congress 
authorizes him to call them to arms. We do not want men to 
devote the greater part of their time to training in arms. We want 
men Avhose occupation and passion and habit is peace, because they 
are the only men who can carry into the field the spirit of America 
as contrasted with the spirit of the professional soldier. I would 
not have you for a moment understand me as detracting from the 
character and reputation of the professional soldier as we know him 
in the United States. I have dealt with him; he is as good an 
American as I am. He has a degree of intelligence and of devotion 
to his duty which commands my entire admiration. But the spirit of 
every profession is different from the spirit of the community. I 
would not trust any particular business to any particular profession 
exclusively if it were the public business, because every profession 
that I know anything about has its special point of view. But when 
a man has to defend his country outside the circle of the things that 
he ordinarily does, he has, I believe, the spirit of his country in a 
degree that he would not have it if he were merely performing a 
professional duty. 

Have you looked at the most valued souvenir of families in Amer- 
ica? Have you never seen a rusty sword treasured from the days of 
the Revolution or from the days of the Civil War? Have you never 
seen an old-fashioned musket hung up in some conspicuous place 
of honor? Did you ever see u spade hung up, or a pick hung up, 
or a yardstick hung up, or a ledger hung up? Did you ever see 
in such place of honor any symbol of the ordinary occupations of 
peace? Why? Because America loves war and honors it more than 
she loves peace? Certainly not! But because America honors utter 
self-sacrifice more than she lionors anything else. It is no self-sacrifice 
to earn your daily bread; it is a necessity — a necessity which, if you 
accomplish it with success, you are deserving of all praise. But it 
is not self-sacrifice. It is no self-sacrifice to work for yourself and 
the people you love. The self-sacrifice comes when you are ready 
to forget voursclf, foi-get your loved ones, forget everything, even 
your love of life itself,' to serve an invisible master, the great spirit 
of America herself. We dread Avar, we condemn war in America. 
AVe love peace. But we knovvr that the lads who carried those swords 
and those muskets loved something more even than they loved peace— 
that th«'v loved honor and the integrity of the Nation. 

Aud so. ladies and gentlemen, v.e have to prepare ourselves not to 
be unfair to the men who are aoing to make this self-sacrifice should 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 41 

the terrible necessity arise for them to make it. We oucht to make 
sure that we are not responsible I'or h^iviiiij^ thein in!j)repare(l in 
knowledge and in training, and we ought lo make it the pride of 
America that great bocHes of men greater tlian the (lovernment calls 
for are ready to [)rei)are themselves Ua- the day of exigency and tho 
day of s:ic iiice. Every lad that did this would feel better for it. 
Every lad ihat obeyed his (jlliccrs in the process of training would 
feel that he was obeying something greatei- than the odiccr, that ho 
was obeying the instinct of i)atriotic service, and clothing himself 
with a new nobility by reason of the ])rocess. 

I have been asked by questioning friends in Washington whether I 
thought a sullicient number of men would volunteer for the training 
or not. AVhy, if they did not, it is not the America that you and I 
know; souiething has happened. They have said, "Do you suppose 
that tiu' men who emi)loy young nien would give them leave to take 
this training " ? I say, '"Certainly I suppose it ; I know it." Because 
I know that the patriotism of America is not a name and an empty 
boast, but a si)lendid reality. If they did not do it, I should be 
ashamed of America, and I never expect to see the day when America 
gives me the slightest reason to be ashamed of her. I am sorry for 
the skeptics who believe that the response would not be tremendous; 
not grudging, but overflowing in its abundant strength. And it is to 
]M"ove that that wc want to try the plans that are before the present 
Congress. 

You will remind me of the great National Guard of the country; 
but how great is it, ladies and gentlemen? There are one hundred 
million people in this country and there are only 120,000 men in the 
National Guard, and those 129,000 men are under the direction, by 
the constitutional arrangement of our system, of the governments of 
more than two score States. The President of the United States 
is not at lil)erty to call them out of their States except upon the occa- 
sion of actual invasion of the territory of the United States. We 
are not now thinking of invasion of the territory of the United 
States. That is not what is making us anxious. We are not asking 
ourselves, " Shall we be prepared to defend our own shores and our 
own homes? " Is that all that we stand for, to keep th.e door securely 
shut against enemies? Certainly not. What of the great tnistee- 
ship we have set up for liberty of government and national inde- 
pendence in the whole Western Hemisphere? What of the pledges 
back of that great principle that has been ours and guided our 
foreign alTairs ever since tlie day of President ^lonroe ? We stand 
pledged to see that both the continents of America are left free to 
be used by their jieoples as those peoples choose to use them, under 
a principle of national popular sovereignty as absolute and unchal- 
lenged as our oval. And at this very nu)ment. as I am si)eakiug- to 
yon, the Americas are drawing together upon that handsome principle 
of reciprocal respect and reciprocal defence. 

When I speak of ]Meparation for national defence I am speaking 
of something intangible and visionary; I am looking at a vi-iou of 
the mind. America has never seen its destiny with the ])hysical eye. 
The destiny of America lies written in the lines of p(jets, in the char- 
acters of self-sacrificing soldiers, in the conceptions and ambitions 
of her greatest .statesmen; lies written in the teachings of her s'-li!iol- 
rooms, in all those ideals of service of humanity and of liberty fur 



42 ADDRESSES OF PEESIDENT WILSON, 

the individual which are to be found written in the very schoolbooks 
of the bo3'S and 2;ir]s whom we send to be taught to be Americans. 
The destiny of America is an ideal destiny. America has no reason 
for beinp; unless her destiny and her duty be ideal. It is her in- 
cumbent privilege to declare and stand for the rights of men. Noth- 
ing less is worth fighting for, nothing less is worth sacrificing for. 
The men and women of tlie American Colonies were physically com- 
fortable. Even the much complained of arrangements of trade in 
those days were not unfair in the sense that they did not bring pros- 
perity. "America was offended and restless under the mere sug- 
gestion that she was not allowed to get her prosperity in her own wa}^ 
and under the guidance of her own spirit and purpose, and the 
American Revolution was fought for an ideal. We would have been 
as prosperous under the British Crown, but we should not have been 
as happy and we should not have respected ourselves as much. 

Therefore, what America is bound to fight for when the time comes 
is nothing more nor less than her self-respect. There is no immediate 
jDrospect that her material interests may be seriously affected, but 
there is constant danger, every day of the week, that her spiritual 
interests may suffer serious affront, and it is in order that they may be 
safeguarded, in order that x^-merica may show that the old concep- 
tions of liberty are ready to translate themselves in her hands into con- 
ceptions and manifestations of power at any time that it is necessary 
so to transform them, that we must make ourselves ready. You have 
not sent your representatives to Washington, ladies and gentlemen, to 
represent your business merely, to represent your ideals of material 
life. You have sent them there to represent you in your character as a 
Nation, and it is only from that point of view that they counsel you ; 
it is only upon that footing that they can appeal to you. I feel this so 
profoundly that I want to add this: I did not come away from Wash- 
ington because I had the least misgiving as to what the United States 
was going to do. You must not get impatient because there are long 
processes of debate at Washington. Wait for the end of the debate. 
The things that are necessary to be done are going to be done and 
thoroughly done. I for my part would be sorry for the man who did 
not take part in doing them if he had to stand up and give the reasons 
why, and I hope that every man who does not consent to do them will 
be made to stand up and give the reasons why. But it is empty to say 
that, because there is no danger; the things are going to be done. I 
came merely in order that you might understand the spirit in which 
they are proposed, and also receive from my lips the assurance of the 
absolute necessity that they should be done thoroughly and done 
very soon. For if they are not done and thoroughly done and done very 
soon it may turn out that you have laid upon me an impossible task, 
and that I should have to suffer the mortification and you the disap- 
pointment of having the combination of peace with honor prove to 
be impossible. 

It is not a happy circumstance to have these moments of national 
necessity arise, and yet I for my part am not sorry that this neces- 
sity has arisen. It has awakened me, myself, I frankly confess to 
you. to many things and many conditions which a year ago I did not 
realize. I did not I'cali/.e then that the things were possible which 
have since become actual facts. I am glad that I know better than 



ADDRESSES OP PRESIDENT WILSON". 43 

T kDPW then exactly the sort of worhl we are liviiiji in. T woiihl he 
ushanitHl of n\y inlelli^eiicc if I did not uufU'i'stiUul the .si^nrilicuiu-c 
of in(hihitahle*f!icts. And it may he that hwixo hodios of our Ct'llow 
citizens were resting in a false secnrity, hased upon an iniajririary 
corre.si)ondence of all the world with the con{'ej)tions under which 
they were themselves conduetini^ their own lives. It is probably a 
fortunate eircuni.stance, therefore, (hat America has been cried awake 
by these voices in the disturbed and reiklened ni«ilit. when (ire sweeps 
sidlenlv from continent to continent, and it may be that in this red 
Hanie of li^ht there will rise a,i2;ain (hat ideal figure of America hold- 
ing up her hand of hope and of guidance to the i)eople of the world 
and saying, •' I stand ready to coun.sel and to help; I stand ready to 
assert whenever the (lame is quenched those infinite princii)les of rec- 
titude and peace which alone can bring happiness and liberty to man- 
kind." 

DES MOINES, IOWA, FEBRUARY 1, 1916. 

Mr. Chairman, Your Excellency, and Fellow Citizens: I am 
greatly cheered, as well as greatly honored, by the sight of this 
great audience. I have been very much impressed by being told that 
you have been waiting here patiently for more than two hours for 
the exercises of the evening, and I "think I know, I hope I know, 
what that means. It is not only that in your gracious courtesy you 
have waited to greet the President of the United States, but that, 
knowing the errand upon which he has come, you are profoundly in- 
terested", as he is, in the candid discussion of some of tlie chief things 
which concern the welfare and the safety of the Nation. 

Some one who does not know our feliow citizens quite as well as 
he ought to know them told me that there was a certain degree of 
indifference and lethargy in the Middle West with regard to the 
defence of the Nation. I said, " I do not believe it, but I am going out 
to see"; and I have seen. I have seen what I expected to see— great 
bodies of serious men, great bodies of earnest women, coming to- 
gether to show their profound interest in the objects of this visit of 
mine. I know, therefore, that it is my privilege to address those who 
will realize the spirit of responsibility in which I speak to them. 

My fellow citizens, it would be easy? if I permitted myself to do 
so, to draw a picture of the present situation of the Avorld which 
would deeply stir your feelings and perhaps deeply excite your ap- 
prehension, but you would not think that it was right for your 
Chief J^Iagistrate to speak any word of excitement whatever. I want 
you to believe that in what I say to you I am endeavoring as far as 
extemporaneous speech will permit to weigh every word that I say. 
I said a moment ago that you know the errand upon which I have 
come to you, but do you know the reasons why I have undertaken that 
errand? There are some very conclusive and imperative reasons. 
Some of our fellow citizens are seeking to darken coun.sel upon this 
great matter; not I hope and believe out of wrong motives, but cer- 
tainly I believe out of mistaken conceptions of the duty and interest 
of America. 

On the one hand there is a considerable body of men who are try- 
ing to stir the very sort of excitement in this country upon which 



44 ADDKESSES OF PEESIDENT WILSON. 

every true, Avell-balanced American ought to frown. There are actu- 
ally men in America who are preaching Avar, who are preaching the 
duty of the United States to do what it never would before seek 
entanglement in the controversies Avhich have arisen on the other 
side of the Avater — abandon its habitual and traditional policy and 
deliberately engage in the coniiict v.hich is now engulfing the rest of 
the world. "^ I do not know Avhat the standards of citizenship of these 
gentlemen may be. I only know that I for one can not subscribe to 
those standards. I believe that I more truly speak the spirit of 
America when I say that that spirit is a spirit of peace. Why, no 
voice has ever come to any public man more audibly, more unmis- 
takablv, than the voice of this great people has come to me, bearing 
this impressive lesson, " We are counting upon you to keep this 
country out of war." And I call you to witness, my fellow country- 
men, that I have spent every thought and energy that has been 
vouchsafed me in order to keep this country out of Avar. It can not 
be disclosed now, perhaps it can never be disclosed, how anxious and 
difficult that task has been, but my heart has been in it. I have not 
grudged a single burden that has been throAvn upon me with that end 
in vicAV, for I kncAv that not only ni}- own heart, but the heart of all 
America, Avas in the cause of peace. 

Yet, my fellow citizens, there are some men amongst us preaching 
peace Avho go much furthe]- than I can go. Not further than I can 
go in the sentiment of peace; not further than truth Avarrants them 
in going in interpreting the desire and sentiment of America, but 
further than I can folloAv them, further, I belicA^e, than you can 
folloAV them, in preaching the doctrine of peace at any price and 
in any circumstances. There is a price Avhich is too great to pay for 
peace, and that price can be put in one word. One can not pay the 
price of self-respect. One can not pay the price of duties abdicated, 
of glorious opportunities neglected, of character, national character 
left Avithout vindication and exemplification in action. America has 
a character as distinct as the character of any individual amongst us. 
We read that character in every page of her singular and glorious 
history. It is written in invisible signs Avhich, nevertheless, our 
.spirits can decipher upon the very folds of the flag Avhich is the 
emblem of our national life. 

The gentlemen Avho are out-and-out pacifists are making one funda- 
mental mistake. That is not a mistake about the sentiments of 
America, but a mistake about the circumstances of the AA'orld. Amer- 
ica does not constitute the Avorld. In many of her sentiments and 
predilections she does not represent or influence the Avorld. The 
dangers to our peace do not come any longer from Avithin our oAvn 
borders. I could not have said that a few months ago. Passion was 
astir in this country. There Avas a clash of sympathies and a heat 
of passion Avhich made our air tense and made men hold their breath 
for fear some of our felloAv countrymen Avould forget that their first 
loyalty was to America and only their second loyalty to the ancient 
affections Avhich bound them, and honorably bound them, to some 
older country and polity. But those dangers haA-e passed. America 
has regained her self-possession. Men are noAv ready to feel and to 
act in common in the great cause of a common national life, and no 
inlliiencc a\ ithin America is going to disturb the peace of America. 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 45 

But America can not be an ostrich with its head in the sand, 
America can net shut itself out from tlie rest ol' (ho worUl, because 
all the dangers at this present mouient, and they are nrany, come 
from her contacts with the rest of the world. Jliose contacts are 
goinn- to be hirpdy determined by other nations and not determined 
by ourselves. 1 liave not come to tell you that there is any dan<j;er 
to our national life from anythin*^- that your (xovernment may do or 
your Conui-ess propose. I have come to tell you tliat there is danger 
to our national life from what other nations may do. And let mo 
say, ladies and gentlemen, that I would not speak of other nations 
in a spirit of criticism. Not only would it not become me to do so, 
as your spokesman and representative, but I would not be interpret- 
ing my real feeling if I did so. Every nation now engaged in the 
titanic struggle on the other side of tlie water believes, with an 
intensity of conviction that can not be exaggerated, that it is fighting 
for its rights, and in most instances that it is fighting for its life; ancl 
we must not be too critical of the men who lead those nations. If 
America's liberty were involved, if Ave thought that America's life 
•was involved, would we criticize our leaders and public men because 
they went every length of even desperate endeavor to see that the 
Nation did not' suffer and that the Nation did triumph? I have it 
not in my heart to criticize these men. But I want you to know the 
dangers that they are running, and that the dangers they are run- 
ning are dangers which involve us also. 

Look what it is that America is called on to do. I can tell you 
Avhat America is called on to do, because there is hardly a day goes 
by that some bit of news does not bear to my office some kind of 
appeal. There is hardly a Aveek goes by that some delegation does 
not come to the Executive Office in Washington bearing some land of 
protest, some kind of request, some kind of urgent message, looking 
toAvard interference in the interest of peace. Why, I have talked 
with earnest men and women, not of our OAvn citizenship, but come 
out of the body of these other great nations, Avho plead Avith me to 
put the moral force of the Government of the United States into one 
or other of the Eluropean scales, so as to see that this struggle Avas the 
sooner brought to a peaceful conclusion. America is looked upon to 
sit in a sort of moral judgment upon the processes of Avar. And the 
processes of Avhat a Avar! The world, my felloAV citizens, never Avit- 
nessed a struggle like this before. Do you knoAV that there is not a 
single continent except the continent of South America that has not 
been touched by the flame of this terrible conflagration? Do you 
know that there is not a single country in the Avorld, not even except- 
ing our oAvn, into Avhich the influences of this tremendous struggle 
haVe not been thrust by Avay of political influence and effect? The 
whole Avorld is tremulous with the influences of passion and of des- 
perate struggle, and the only great disengaged nation is this Nation 
Avhich Avc love and Avhose interests Ave Avouhl conserve. 

What is xVmerica expected to do? She is expected to do nothing 
less than keep laAv alive while the rest of the Avorld burns. You knoAv 
that there is no international tribunal, my felloAv citizens. I pray 
God that if this contest have no other result, it Avill at least have the 
result of creating an international tribime and producing some sort 
of joint guarantee of peace on the part of the great nations of the 



46 ADDEESSES OF PBESIDENT WILSON. 

world. But it lias not yet clone that, and the only thing, therefore, 
that keeps America out of danger is that to some degree the under- 
standings, the ancient and honorable understandings, of nations with 
regard to their relations to one another and to the citizens of one 
another are to some extent still observed and followed. And when- 
ever there is a departure from them, the United States is called upon 
to intervene, to speak its voice of protest, to speak its voice of in- 
sistence. 

Do you Avant it to be only a voice of insistence? Do you want the 
situation to be such that all that the President can do is to write 
messages; to utter words of protest? If these breaches of inter- 
national law which are in daily danger of occuring should touch the 
very vital interests and honor of the United States, do you wish to do 
nothing about it? Do you wish to have all the world say that the 
flag of the United States, which we love, can be stained with im- 
i>;mity ? Why, to ask the question is to answer it. I know that there 
is not" a man or a woman in the hearing of my voice who would wish 
peace at the expense of the honor of the United States. 

I said just now that an unmistakable voice had come to my ears 
from out the great body of this Nation, saying, " We depend upon 
yon to keep us out of war;" but that same voice added always this 
sentence also, " But we depend upon you to maintain unsullied and 
nnquestioned the honor and integrity of the United States;" and 
many a night when it has seemed impossible for me to sleep, because 
of the thought of the apparently inextricable difficulties into Avhich 
our international relations were drifting, I have said to myself. " I 
wonder if the people of the United States fully realize what that 
mandate means to me?" And then sleep has come because I have 
ki.own, as I have known in my OAvn mind and in my ovs-n heart, that 
there was not a community in America that would not stand behind 
me in maintaining the honor of the United States. 

My fellow citizens, you may be called upon any day to stand behind 
me to maintain the honor of the United States. And how are you 
going to do it? There are two Avays of doing it. One is the careless, 
easy-going, wasteful way in Avhich we have done these things hitherto. 
You say, "There are plenty of fighting men in the United States; 
there are unexhausted and inexhaustible material resources in the 
United States; nobody could do more than put us at a disadvan- 
tage for a little while." Yes; there are plenty of fighting men in 
the United States; but do they know how modern war is con- 
ducted? Do they know how to guard themselves against disease in 
the camp? Do they knoAv what the discipline of organization is? 
Shall we send the whole body of those men who first volunteer to be 
butchered because they did not know how to make themselves imme- 
diately ready for the battlefield and the trench; because they did not 
know anything about the terrible vicissitudes and disciplines of mod- 
ern liattle? 

AVhy, war has been transformed almost within the memory of men. 
The mere mustering of volunteers is not war. Mere bodies of men 
are not an army; and Ave have neither the men nor the equipment for 
the men if they should be called out. It Avould take time to make an 
army of them— perhaps a fatal length of time— and it Avould take a 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON". 47 

lonj; time to provide them with the ahsolnto noces55itiGs of warfare. 
America is not fjoiiify to sacrifice her youth after that fashion. Amer- 
ica is ji;oin<j: to prejjare for war by preparino- citizens who know what 
war means and how war can he conchicted. It is ^^oincf to increase its 
standinu: army up to (he j)oint of elliciency for the present uses for 
which it is needed, and it is G:oinj: to put i)ack of that army a great 
body of i)eaceful men, followinp; their chiily pui-suits, kiM)\vinf; that 
their own happiness and tiie happiness of everybody they h)ve de- 
pends upon peace, who, neverthek^ss, at the call of their country, will 
know how immediately to make themselves into an army and to come 
out and face an enemy in a fashion which will show that America 
can neither be daunted nor taken by surprise. 

I spoke just now of equipment. I know that there is a very gen- 
eral impression that inlluences are at work in this country whoso 
impulse does not come from a thoughtful conviction of danger, but 
which is said to come from a very thoughtful prospect of profit. 
I have heard the preposterous statement made that the agitation for 
preparation for national defense has come chiefly from the men who 
make armor plate for the ships and munitions for the Army. Why, 
laclies and gentlemen, do you suppose that all the thoughtful men who 
are engaged upon this side of this great question are susceptible of 
being ted by influences of that sort? Do yon suppose that they are so 
blind to the manifest opportunities for that sort of profit that they do 
not know the influences that are abroad and effective in such matters? 
I have not found tlie impulse for national defense coming from those 
sources. I have found it coming from the men with whom I rubbed 
shoulders on the street and in the factory; I have found it coming 
from the men who have nothing to do with the making of jn-ofits, 
but who have everything to do with the making of the daily life of 
this covmtry. And it is from them that I take my inspiration. But 
I know the points of danger, and from the first, ladies and gentle- 
men, I have been urging upon Congress — I ui-ged upon Congress 
before this war began — that the Governm.ent of the United States 
supply itself with the necessary plants to make the armor for the 
ships and to make the munitions for the guns and the men, and I 
believe, and confidently predict, that the adoption of measures of 
that sort will be part of the preparation for national defense: not 
in order, for it is not necessary, that the Government should make 
all the armor plate needed for the fleet or all the munitions needed 
for the men and the guns, but in order that it should make enough 
to regulate and control the price. 

We arc not theorists in this matter. We have tried it in one field. 
The Government is now manufacturing a very considerable propor- 
tion of the powder needed for the Navy. TJie consequence is that 
it has reduced its price from 53 cents to 3G cents. The point is that 
it can now get its powderfrom the private manufacturers of powder 
at 36 cents, because they know that it can be manufactured for that 
with a reasonable profit, and that if the Government can not bu}' it 
from them, it will make it for itself. 

Of course somebody is going to make money out of the things 
privately manufactured, manufactured by private capital. There 
are men now in the great belligerent countries making. I dare say, 



48 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

vast sums of money out of the war, but making it perfectly legiti- 
mately, and I for one do not stand here to challenge or doubt their 
patriotism in the matter. America is not going to be held bacli from 
any great national enterprise by any great financial interest of any 
sort, because America, of all places in the world, is alive to things 
of that sort and knows how to avoid the difficulties which are in- 
volved. If there is any thought on the part of those who make 
armor plate and munitions that they will get extraordinary profit 
out of preparation for national defense, all I have to say is that 
tliey will be sadly disappointed. But these are things which to 
my'mind go without saying, for, ladies and gentlemen, if it is neces- 
sary to defend this Nation we are going to defend it no matter who 
makes money and no matter what it costs, 

I have heard some gentleman say, " My constituents do not object 
to the program, but they do object to the bills that will have to be 
paid afterv.ards." I Avoiild be very sorry to give that account of any 
constituency in the United States. I would be very sorry to believe, 
and I do not believe, that any constituency in the United States will 
be governed by considerations of that sort. Of course it is going 
to cost money'^ to prepare for defense, but equally of course the 
American people are going to pay for it, and pay for it without 
grumbling. We are not selfishly rich; we are a very rich people, 
Ijut we can not be rich as a people unless we maintain our character 
and integrity as a people. Life is not worth anything for us as a 
nation if the very issues of life for the Nation itself are put in 
jeopardy by the action which we neglect to take. So I have come 
out on this errand merely to get into touch with you, my fellow 
citizens, merely to let you know in temperate words from my own 
lips that the men who are saying that preparation for national de- 
fense is necessary, and immediately necessary, are speaking the sober 
truth. And I believe that you will credit the statement that no man 
is in a better position to know that than I am. 

One aspect of this matter makes me very glad, indeed. Party 
politics, my friends, sometimes plays too large a part in the United 
States. Parties are Avorth while only when their differences are 
based upon absolute conviction. They are not worth while when 
they are based upon differences of personal ambition. Parties are 
dignified and worthy of the consideration of a nation only when 
their arguments are for the national benefit, each arguing according 
to their genuine opinion, their real observation of facts, their real 
ardor for the national welfare; and it is very delightful sometimes, 
as upon this occasion, to find an issue regarding which no line 
can be drawn between one party and another. I have not the 
embarrassment in standing before you to-night of making the im- 
pression that I am urging the advantage of a party or the advantage 
of an individual. There are just as many men interested in national 
defense on the one side as on the other. They are all actuatecl by 
the same motives; they differ as to details, but they do not differ 
as to their objects, and I thank God that there is no party politics 
when it comes to the life and welfare of the ITnited States. Do you 
suppose that if the country Avere in danger, any man would hesitate 
to volunteer on the giound that he belonged to this party or to 
that? Do you suppo;^e (hat if a Republican administration Avere 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 49 

in power at Wnsliinj>:ton any Democrat would liesitate to enlist, or 
that, a Democratic administration heinfj; there, any Republican would 
hesitate to enlist'^ Why, the whole history of the coiintry «j;ives an 
emphatic nej^ative to that question. We are not Democrats or Ive- 
publicans to-ni<!;ht. We are Americans. 

It \v:is a very thrilliii*^ thinj^ to me as I came into this hall to sco 
the multitude of American ilaj^s that waved above the heads of this 
audience, and upon every stage of my journey since I left Washington, 
on Friday last, 1 have seen Hags, l/ig (higs, little (lags, flags of every 
sort, old ilags torn with use, new (lags brought out for the (irst time, dis- 
played any way — upon improvised [)oles, upon the roof trees of houses, 
upon chiiiineys, upon any point of vantage where somebody might 
throw to the 'breeze this thrilling signal of our national life; an<i it 
has seemed to me that as each stage of the journey was accomplislied, 
there was imi)rinted still deeper upon my heart this solemn rellection, 
that the honor of that flag was in my keei)ing not only, but in the 
keeping of the people who displayed it, for, ladies and gentlemen, 
the impulses of government in this country do not come fi-om the 
rulers, they come from the people. I was saying the other night that 
I know of no case where one people made war upcm another people. 
I know only of cases where one Government made war upon another 
Government. No Government can make war in the United States. 
The peoi)le make war through their representatives. The Constitu- 
tion of the United States does not give the President even a partic- 
ipating part in the making of war. AVar can be declared only by the 
Congress, by an action which the President does not take part in and 
can not veto. I am literally, by constitutional arrangement, the mere 
servant of the people's representatives. 

I know that a gi-eat pulSe of feeling underlies the thought of every 
one of you, as it underlies my thought. We teach our children, ladies 
and gentlemen, the history of the United States, and I suppose we do 
incidentally point out to them the great matei-ial growth and tremen- 
dous physical power of this country, but that is not what we em- 
phasize in our history. We tell them the stories (how proudly wo 
tell them the stories) of the men who have died for their country 
without any thought of themselves; of the great ideal principles for 
the vindication of which America was set up, and which the flag 
that we honor was designed to represent. And as 1 look at that (lag 
I seem to see many characters upon it which are not visible to the 
physical eye. There seem to move there ghostly visions of devoted men 
who, looking to that Hag, thought only of liberty, of the rights of 
mankind, of the mission of America to show the way to the world for 
the realization of the rights of mankind; and every grave of every 
brave man of the country would seem to have upon it the colors of 
the flag, if he was a true American; would seem to have on it that 
stain of red whicli means the true pulse of blood, and that beauty of 
pure white which means the peace of the soul. And then there seems 
to rise over the graves of these men and to hallow their memories 
that blue space of the sky in which stars swim, those stars which 
exemplify for us that glorious galaxy of the States of the Union, 
bodies of free men banded together to vindicate the rights of 
mankind. 



50 ADDRESSES OF PEESIDEKT WILSON. 

TOPEKA, KANS., FEBRUARY 2, 1916. 

Mr. Cn.\iR:\rAN, Your ExcELLE^'CY, Fellow Citizens : It is a gen- 
nine satisfaction on my part to find myself in Kansas again. I feel 
that e\ery word that your governor has said about Kansas is true. 
It likes to know what the facts are and it likes to give them an open 
and frank c( nsiderati( n. Moreover. I believe that you realize that 
I would not have come away from Washington except upon a very 
unusual occasion. Ob\iously it is my duty, so far as possible, to be 
a]wa3^s in Washington during these critical times of change, when no- 
bod}^ knows what an hour will bring forth or what delicate question 
■will assume some new aspect. You will realize, therefore, that it 
was only because I felt it my imperative and supreme duty to come 
out and discuss matters with you that I have left Washington at all, 
and that only for a few days. 

I have come, not to plead a cause — the cause I would speak for 
does not need to be plead for — but because I would assist, if I could, 
to clarify judgment and to sweep away those things irrelevant and 
untrue which are likely to cloud the issue of national defence if they 
be not very candidly spoken about. You will ask me. " Is there some 
new crisis that has arisen?" I answ-er. "No; there is no special, 
new, critical situation which I have to discuss with you; but I want 
you to understand that the situation every day of the year is critical 
while this great contest c(;ntinues in Europe." I need not tell you 
whtit my own attitude toward that contest is. \ I have tried t o live 
up to the counsel which I have given my fellow citizens, not onl}' 
to be neutral in action but also to be neutral in the genui ne a ttitude 
of ni}' thought and mind._ It is easy to refrain from unneutral acts, 
but it is not easy, when the w^orld is swept by storm, to refrain fi'om 
unneutral thought. Moreover. America is a composite Nation. You 
do not realize it quite so much in Kansas as it is realized in some 
ether parts of the Union. So overwhelming a pro])ortion of your 
populatic n is native born that you naturally feel your first conscious- 
ness to be of America and things American; but imagine those com- 
munities — and they are many — which contain very large bodies of 
men whose birthplace, whose memories, whose family connections 
are on the other side of the sea, in places now swept by the flame of 
war; men for whom every mail brings news of some disaster that, it 
may be, has touched those whom they love or has swept the face of 
some countryside which they remember in association with the days 
of their youth. Their intimate sympathies are with some of the 
places now most affected by this titanic struggle. You can not 
wonder — I do not wonder — that their aftections are stirreci, old 
memories awakened and old passions rekindled. The majority of 
them are steadfast Amei'icans, nevertheless. Look what happened 
to them, my felhnv citizens. You and I were born in America : they 
chose to be Americans. They deliberately came to America, beckoned 
hither by some of the fairest promises and prospects ever offered 
to mankind. They were told that this was a land of liberty and of 
opportunity, as it is. They were told that this was a land in which 
thev could throw off some of the restraints and trammels under 
which they had chafed in the older countries. They were told that 
this was the place for the feet of young men who had ambition and 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 51 

who wished iintrammeled hope to be their only leader; and of their 
own free and deliberate choice they crossed the waters and joined 
their destinies with oiirs. and the vast majority of Ihein have the pas- 
sion of American liberty in their hearts just as much as yon and I 
have. I do net want any American to misunderstand the real situ- 
ati< n, and I believe that to be the real situation. Some men of for- 
eij];n birth have tried to stir up trouble in America, but. <:;entlemen, 
some men of American birth have tried to stir up trouble in America, 
too. If you were to listen to the counsels that are dinned into my 
ears in the Executive OHice in Washington, you would find that 
some of the most intemperate of them came from the lips of men 
whose peoi)le have for •ienerations tcgether been identified with 
America but who for the time being are so cari-ied away by the >^weep 
of their symjiathies that they have ceased to think in the terms of 
American tradition and American policy. 

So that the situation for us is this: There is no country in the 
R-orld. I suppose, whose heart is moi-e open to generous emotions 
than this dear country which we love. Vou have seen what the 
result was in the extraordinary amount of assistance which we have 
tried to render to those who are suffering most grievously from the 
consequences of the war on the other side of the sea. I express no 
judgment conceining any matter with regard to the conduct of the 
war, but the heart of America has bled because of the condition of 
the people in Belgium, and you know how we have poui-ed out of our 
sympathy and ofour wealth to assist in the i-elief of suffering in that 
sorrow -swept land. America looks to all quarters of the world and 
sympathizes with mankind in its sullerings wherever those sufferings 
may be displayed or undergone. 

VVhat you have to realize is that everywhere throughout America 
there is combustible material — combustible in our breasts. It is easy 
to take fire where everything is hot. It is easy to start a flame when 
the air is full of the floating sparks of a great conflagration. AVe have 
got to be on our guard, and it has been our hourly and daily anxiety 
m Washington to see that the exposed tinder was covered up and the 
sparks prevented from falling where there were magazines. 

I was told before I came here, and I read in one of your papers this 
moi-ning. that Kansas was not in sympathy with any policy of prei)a- 
ration for national defense. I do not believe a word of it. I long 
ago learned to distinguish between editorial opinion and popuhir 
opinion. Moreover, having been addicted to books, I happened to 
have read the history of Kansas, and if there is any place in the 
world fuller of fight' than Kansas I would like to hear of it: any 
other place fuller of fight on the right lines. Kansas is not looking 
for trouble, but Kansas has made trouble for everybody that inter- 
fered with her liberties or her rights, and if I were to pick out one 
place which was likely to wince first and get hot fii-st about invasion 
of the essential principles of American libeity I certainly would look 
to Kansas among the first places in the country. If Kansas is op- 
posed or has been opposed to the policy of preparation for national 
defense, it has been only because somebody has misrepresented that 
policy, and Kansas does not know what it is. 

What is the issue? Why, of course, there are some inen going 
about proposing great military establishments for America, but yon 



52 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

have not heard anybody connected with the administration who dM. 
You have not heard anybody in any responsible position who could 
carry his plan out who did. The singular thing about this situation 
is that the loudest voices have been the irresponsible voices. It is 
easy to talk and to say what ought to be done when you know that 
you do not have to do it. Nobody in authority, nobody in a position 
to lead the policy of the country, has proposed great military arma- 
ments, and nobody who really understands the histoi-y or shares the 
spirit of America could or would propose great military establish- 
ments for America. But I have heard of men in Kansas who owned 
their own firearms and knew how to use them, and if there is any 
place in the Union more than another where you ought to understand 
what it is to be ready to take care of yourselves, this is the place. 
All that anybody in authority has ]n'oposed is that America should 
be put in such a position that her free citizens should knovv' how to 
take care of themselves and their country when the occasion arose. 

We have been proposing only a very moderate increase in the 
standing army of the country because it is already too small for the 
routine uses of peace. I have not had soldiers enough to patrol the 
border between here and IVIexico. I have not had soldiers enough for 
the ordinary services of the Army, and there are many things that 
it has been impossible for me to do which it v,-as my duty to do, be- 
cause there were not men to do them with. You are not. I am sure, 
coing to be jealous of an increase of the Army merely sufficient to 
enable the Executive to carry out his constitutional responsibilities. 
Over and above that we have proposed this, that a sufficient number 
of men out of the ranks of the civil pursuits of the country .should be 
tramed in the use and keeping of arms, in the sanitation of camps, iu 
the maneuvers of the field, and in military organization; to be ready 
and pledged to be ready, if the call should come upon act of Congress, 
to unite their force with the little force of the Army itself and make 
a great multitude of armed men who were ready to vindicate the 
rights of America. 

Is there anything inconsistent with the traditions of Kansas or 
with the true traditions of America in a proposal like that? The 
very essence of American tradition is contained in the pro])osal. 
Every constitution of every State in the I^nion forbids the State 
legislature to abridge the right of its citizens to carry arms. At the 
very outset the makers of our very institutions realized that the force 
of the Nation must dwell in the homes of the Nation. I do not mean 
the moi'al force merely; I mean the ]ihysical force also. They rea- 
lized that every man must be allowed not only to have a vote, but, if 
he wanted to. to have a gun too, so that when the voices of peace did 
not suffice, the voices of force would prevail; knowing that great 
bodies of men do not use force to usurp their own liberties, but to de- 
clare and vindicate their liberties, and that there will be no collusion 
among free men to upset free institutions; that, whereas cliques and 
cotei'ies and professional groups may conceive it to be of their in- 
terest to interfere with the peaceful life of the country, the general 
body of citizens would never so conceive it. 

What we are asking is this, that the Nation sup]ily ai'ms for those 
of the Nation who are ready, if occasion should arise, to come to the 
national defense, and that it should do this without withdrawing 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 53 

them from their pursuits of iiKhistry and of peace, in order that 
America shoukl know that in the fountains from which she always 
draws her strength there weUed up the inexhaustihle resources of 
American manhood. This is not a militai-y poHcy; this is a poHcy 
of adei|uate i)reparation for national tk'f'ense, and any man wlio rep- 
resents it in any otiier li^ht must either be ignorant or is consciously 
misrepresentinir <!u' facts. 

Vou will sav, "We have a National Guard.'' Yes; we have a Na- 
tional Guard,' and the units of it, so far as I have observed them, 
couunand my admiration and respect, but there are only l'-!l).0()!) 
enlisted men' in the National Guard, taking the Nation as a whole, 
and they are divided up into as many units as there are States. The 
Constitution of the United States puts them under the direct com- 
mand and control of the governors of the States, not of the President 
of the I'nited States, and the national authority has no right to call 
upon them for any service outside their States unless the territory 
of the Nation is actually invaded. 1 want to see Congress do every- 
thing that it can to eidumce the dignity and the force and to assist 
in the develoi)ment of the National (iuartl, but the National (iuard 
is a body of State troops and not a body of national reserves, because 
the Constitution makes them so, no matter whether wc now think 
those are the best arrangements or not. 

The other matter I want to speak to you about is not the plan 
itself, for that is a question of detail. I have given you the idea 
of it, and time does not suffice to discuss the detail in meetings of 
this sort. The detail is ju'inted, for that matter, for anybody to see 
who wants it. The other matter is this: Suppose you had a great 
body of, let us say, half a million men sufficiently trained to arms 
to make the nucleus of a great army if it were necessary to create a 
great army. AVhat would be your idea that you would do with it? 
That is the matter that we need to clear up most of all. There are 
all sorts of people in the United States, and there are people who 
think that we ought to use the force of the United States to get any- 
thing we can get with it; but you do not think that, and I do not 
think that, and not one American in a hundred thousand thinks that. 
We would never use this force to carry out any policy that even 
smacked of aggression of any kind; because this Nation loves peace 
more than it loves anything else except honour. 

I like that exclamation of Henry V in that stirring play of Shakes- 
peare's, "If it be an offence to covet honour, then am I the most 
offending soul alive," and I believe that could be said of America. 
If it be an offence against the peace of the nations to covet honour, 
then is America the most offending nation in the woi'ld. But she 
knows the basis of honour — that the basis of honour is right, is peace- 
ful intention, is just action, is the treatment of others as we would 
wish to be treated ourselves, is the insistence ujion the rule of a fi-ee 
field and no favor. The spirit of America would hold any Executive 
back, would hold any Congress back, from any action that had the 
least taint of aggression upon it. We are not going to invade any 
nation's territory. We are not going to covet any nation's posses- 
sions. We are not going to invade any nation's rights. But sup- 
pose, my fellow countrymen, some nation should invade our rights. 
What then? What would Kansas think? What would Kansas do 



54 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

then? What would America, speaking by the voice of Kansas or any 
other State in the Union, think and do then? I have come here 
to tell yoii that the dilliculties of our foreign policy, the delicate 
questions of our foreign relationships, do not diminish either in 
number or in delicacy and dilliculty, but, on the contrary, daily in- 
ci'ease in number and in intricacy and in dancer, and I would be dere- 
lict to m}' duty to 3'ou if I did not deal with you in these matters 
with the utmost candor and tell you what it may be necessary to use 
the force of the United States to do. 

For one thing, it may be necessary to use the force of tb.e United 
States to vindicate the right of American citizens everywhere to 
enjoy the protection of international lavr. There is nothing you 
would be quicker to blame me for than neglecting to safeguard the 
rights of Americans, no matter wh.ere they might be in the world. 
There are porfectl}' clearly marked rights guaranteed by interna- 
tional law which every American is entitled to enjoy, and America 
IS not going to abide the habitual or continued neglect of those rights. 
Perhaps not being as near the ports as some other Americans, you 
do not travel as much and you do not realize the infinite number 
of legitimate eri'ands upon which Americans travel — errands of com- 
merce, errands of relief, errands of business for the Government, 
errands of every sort which make America useful to the Avorld. 
Americans do not travel to disturb the world: they travel to quicken 
the processes of the interchange of life and of goods in the world, 
and their travel ought not to be impeded by a reckless disregard ot 
international obligation. 

There is another thing tliat we ought to safeguard, and that is 
our right to sell what we produce in the 0}>en neutral markets of 
the world. Where there is a blockade, we recognize the right to 
blockade: where there are the ordinary restraints created by a state 
of war, we ought to recognize those restraints; but the world needs 
the wheat off of the Kansas fields and otf the other great flowering 
acres of the United States, and we have a right to suj^ply the rest 
of the world with the products of those fields. We have a right 
to send food to peaceful poi)ulations wherever the conditions of war 
make it possible to do so under the ordinary rules of international 
law. We have a right to supply them with our cotton to clothe 
ihem. We have a right to supply them with our manufactured 
products. 

W^e have made some mistakes, my fellow citizens. For several 
generations ])ast we have so neglected our merchant marine that 
one of the difliculties we are struggling against has nothing to do 
with international questions. We have not got the American ships 
to send the goods in. and we have got to get them. I am going to 
ask you to follow the fortunes of the so-called shipping bill in the 
present Congress and make sngaestions to your Congressmen as 
to the absolute necessity of getting your wheat and your other 
products out of the ports and upon the high seas where thev can 
go, and shall go, under the protection of the laws of the United 
States. 

But that is a mere parenthesis. Aside from that, so far as there 
are vehicles to carry our trade, we have the right to extend our trade 
for the assistance of the world. For we have not been selfish in this 
neutral attitude of ours. I resent the suggestion that w'e have been 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 55 

Pclfish. dosirinj^ niorcly to in:iko money. AVhat would h:iiipon if thcro 
uere no <;roiit nation "(lison,2;:i<4V(l from this tcrrililo stru«j;^dc'^ What 
Moiikl happen if ovory nation were consumini;: ils sMl)stance in war^ 
A\'liat would happen if no nation stood ready to assist the world with 
its finances and to supply it with its food'^ We are more indispen- 
sable now to the nations at war by the maintenance of our peace than 
we coidd po. ^il)ly be to either side if we engaj^ed in the war, and 
therefore there is a moral obligation laid upon us to keep out of this 
war if possible. liut by the same token there is a moral ol)lin;ation 
laid ui)(>n us to keep fiee the courses of o\ir connnerce and of our 
iiiiance, and 1 believe that America stands ready to vindicate those 
riirbts. 

Ibit there are ri<2;hts hij^'her than either of those, higher than tho 
rights of individual Americans outside of America, higher and 
greater than the rights of ti-ade and of commerce. I mean the rights 
of mankind. We have made ourselves the guarantors of the rights of 
national sovereignty and of popular sovereignty on this side of the 
water in both the continents of the Western Hemisphere. You would 
be ashamed, as I would be ashamed, to withdraw one inch from that 
handsome guarantee; for it is a handsome guarantee. We have noth- 
ing to make l)y it. unless it be that we are to make friendships by it, 
snul friendships are the best usury of any sort of business. So far 
as dollars and cents and material advantage are concerned we ha\o 
nothing to make by the Monroe doctrine. AVe have nothing to make 
by allying ourselves with the other nations of the Western Hemi- 
sphere in Order to see to it that no man from outside, no government 
from outside, no nation from outside attempts to assert any kind of 
sovereignty or undue political inlluence over the peoples of this con- 
tinent. 

America knoAvs that the only thing that sustains the jVIonroo 
doctrine and all the inferences that flow from it is her own moral and 
physical force. The Monroe doctrine is not part of international 
law. The Monroe doctrine has never been formally accepted by any 
international agreement. The Monroe doctrine merely rests upon 
the statement of' the United States that if certain things happen she 
will do certain things. So, nothing sustains the honour of the United 
States in respect of tliese long-cherished and long-admired promises 
except her own moral and physical force. 

Do you know what has interfered more than anything else with 
the peaceful relations of the United States with the rest of the world? 
The incredulity of the rest of the world when we have made state- 
ment of our sincere unselfishness in these matters! The greatest 
surprise the world ever had, politically speaking, was when the 
United States Avithdrew from Cuba. We'^said, " AVe are fighting this 
war for the sake of the Cubans, and when it is over we are going 
to turn Cuba over to her own people"; and statesmen in every capital 
in Euroi)e smiled behind their hand. They said, "What! that great 
rich island lying directly south of the foot of yonr own Floritla ! 
plant your (big there and then haul it down?" Some Americans even 
said. " Wo will never raise the fiag of the United States anywhere and 
then haul it down." And then, when the American people saw that 
the time had come when her promises were to be fulfilled, down came 
that fluttering emblem of our sovereignty, and we were more lu)n- 
ored in its lowerinc than we had been in its hoisting. The American 



56 ADDRESSES OP PEESIDENT WILSON. 

people feel the same way about the Philippines, though the rest of 
the Avorkl does not yet believe it. We are trustees for the Filipino 
people, and just so soon as we feel that they can take care of their 
own ail'airs without our direct interference and in-otection, the Hag 
of the United States Avill again be honored by the fulHUment of a 
promise. That ilag slaruls for honor, not for advantage. That flag 
s^tands for the rights of mankind, no matter where they be, no matter 
what their antecedents, nc matter what the race involved; it stands 
for the absolute right to political liberty and free self government, 
and wherever it stands for the contrary American traditions have 
be^'un to be forgotten. 

But, my frieiids, the world does not understand that yet. It has 
got to have a few more demonstrations like the demonstration in 
Cuba; it has got to have a few more vindications of the American 
name. AVhen those vindications have come, I believe that nothing 
but peace will ever reign between the United States and the nations 
-of the rest of the world. For every man who minds his own busi- 
ness is sure of peace. Every man who respects his own character 
and observes the rights of others is sure of peace. And every nation 
that makes right its guide and honor its principle is sure of peace. 
But until these things are believed of us we must be ready with the 
hand of force to hold others off from the invasion of any right which 
we hold sacred. 

I have come to you with the utmost confidence that the moment 
you understood the issue, all differences of party, all differences of 
individual judgment, all differences of point of view would fall 
away, and like true Americans we should all stand shoulder to 
shoulder in a common cause, — America first and her vindication the 
sacred law of our life. For, ladies and gentlemen, it is only up(m the 
most solemn occasions that I would appeal to you as I have been ap- 
pealing to-day. The fimil test of the validity, the strength, the irre- 
sistible force of the American ideal, has come. The rest of the world 
must be made to realize from this time out just what America stands 
for, and when that happy time comes when peace shall reign again 
and America shall take part in the undisturbed and unclouded coun- 
sels of the world, it will be realized that the promises of the fathers, 
the ambitions of the men who fought for the bloodv soil of Kansas, 
the ideals of the men who thought nothing of their lives in compari- 
son with their ideals, will have been vindicated and the world will 
say, "America promised to hold this light of liberty and right up for 
the guidance of our feet, and behold she has redeemed her promise. 
Her men. her leaders, her rank and file are pure of heart; they have 
purged their hearts of selfish ambition and they have said to all man- 
kind, 'Men and brethren, let us live together in righteousness and 
in the peace which springeth only from the soil of righteousness 
itself.'" 

CONVENTION HALU KANSAS CITY, MO., FEBRUARY 2, 1916. 

Mr. CTiAimiAx and Felt,ow Cittzf.xs: You have certainly given 
me a most royal welfome to Kansas City, and I esteem it a very great 
privilege to deliver the message which I haA'e come to deliver to this 
groat throng of intelligent peo])le. Jily natural duty to you, ladies 
and gentlemen, is in Washington, not here. I have a certain scruple 



ADDRESSES OP PRESIDENT WILSON. 57 

of conscionoo in heiiii]: awuy from Wnshinfjton for iiumv (l:iys at a 
time, hociuise it is one of tlio iiitcri'stiiii; circiimstaiiccs of the inoiiiciit 
that there is hardly a (hiy whicli docs not in some decree alter th(; 
aspeet of afl'airs. Tt is important for your sake, and, I venture to 
add, for the sake of the i)eace of th(> ^vorhl, tliat those who repi-esent 
you in responsihle stations shouhl keep in constant touch witli these 
chani^es. You will, therefore, cretlit me when I say that it is oidy 
an extraordinary occasion which draws me away from duties needinij 
such constant attention. 

I would not have come away from Washin<;ton had I not believed 
that there was a stron<^er compulsion of conscience to ac(iuaint you 
with the state of alfairs than there was to remain duriniij this week 
at the place of ojuidance. You will know without my des(ril)in2: it 
to you wliat the task assif^ned me has been. It has been the task 
of keeping" the scales so ]ioised from day to day that no man shouhl 
throw into one scale or the other any makeweight which would im- 
peril the peace of the United States; for I have felt that you were 
depending upon your Government to keep you out of this turmoil 
which is disturbing the rest of the world. Y'ou arc counting upon 
me to do more than keep you out of troul)le, however. You are count- 
ing upon me to see to it that the rights of citizens of the United 
States, Avherever they might be, are respected by every])ody. You 
have counted uj)on me to see that your energies should be released 
also along the channels of trade in order that you might serve the 
world as the only Nation disengaged and ready to serve it. Y'ou have 
expected me to see that the rest of the Avorld permitted America thus 
to express and exercise her humane and legitimate energ^^ 

I have come out to ask you what there was behind me in this task. 
Y'ou know the laAvyers speak of the law having a sanction back of it. 
The judge as he sits on his bench has .something back of him. He 
has the whole ph^'sical force of the nation back of him. The laws 
reside and sit upon him, no matter how commonplace his individual 
aspect, with a sort of majest}', because there is the sovereignty of the 
people and of the people's government back of him. When he utters 
a judgment the man against whom it is uttered knows that he dare 
not resist it. But when I, as your spokesman and representative, utter 
a judgment with regard to the rights of the United States in its 
relations to other nations, what is the sanction ? What is the compul- 
sion? What lies back of that? Y^ou will sa}", "The force and 
majesty of the United States." Y'es; the force and majesty' of the 
United States; but is it ready to express itself? If you resist the 
judge, there are the bailiffs of the coin-t; if you resist the bailiffs of 
the court, there are those who assist the .sheriff of the county; if you 
resist the sheriff, there is the National Guard; if you resist the 
National Guard, there is the Army of the United States. But if you 
ignore in some foreign capital what the President of the United 
States urges as the rights of the people and Government of the 
United States, what is there back of that? 

It is necessary, my fellow citizens, that I should ask you this 
question, because I do not know how long the mere word and in- 
sistence of 3'our Government will prevail to maintain your honor 
and the dignity and power of the Nation. There may come a time — 
I pray God it may never come, but it ma}', in spite of everything we 



58 ADDEESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

do, come upon us, and come of a sudden — when I shall have to ask: 
'•I have had my say; who stands back of me? Where is the force 
by which the majesty and right of the United States are to be main- 
tained and asserted?" I take it that there may in your own convic- 
tion come a time when that might and force must be vindicated and 
asserted. You are not willing that what your Government says 
nlmuld be ignored. 

I have seen editorials Avritten in more than one part of the United 
States sneering at the number of notes that were being written from 
the State Department to foreign Governments, and asking, " Why 
does not the Government act?" And in those same papers I have seen 
editorials against the preparation to do anything whatever effective 
if those notes are not regarded. Is that the temper of the United 
States? It may be the temper of some editorial offices, but it is not 
the temper of the people of the United States. 

I came out upon this errand from Washington, and see what hap- 
pened. Before I started everybody knew what errand I was bound 
on. I expected to meet quiet audiences and explain to them the issues 
of the day, and what did I meet ? At every stop of the train multi- 
tudes of my fellow citizens crowded out, not to see the President of 
the United States merel}'— he is not much to look at— but to declare 
their ardent belief in the majesty of the Government which he stands 
for and for the time being represents, and to declare in one fashion 
or another, if it were only by cheers, that they stood ready to do their 
auty in the hour of need. 1 have been thrilled by the experiences of 
these few davs, and I shall go back to Washington and smile at any- 
body who tells me that the United States is not wide awake. But, 
gentlemen, crowds at the stations, multitudes in great audience halls, 
cheers for the Government, the display— the ardent display, as from 
the heart— of the emblem of our Nation, the Stars and Stripes, only 
express the spirit of the Nation; they do not express the organized 
force of the Nation. And while I know, and knew before I left 
Washington, what the spirit of the people was, I have come out to ask 
them what their organization is and what they intend to make it. 

Modern wars are not won by mere numbers. They are not won by 
mere enthusiasm. They are not won by mere national spirit. They 
are won by the scientific conduct of war, the scientific application of 
irresistible force. And what is there behind the President of the 
United States? Well, in the first place, there is a Navy, which, for 
my part, I am very proud of; a Navy, wdiich for its numbers, ship 
by ship, man by man, officer by officer, I believe to be .he equal of 
any navy in the world. But look at the great sweep of our coasts. 
Mind you, this war has engaged all the rest of the world outside of 
South "^ America and the portion of North America occupied by the 
United States, and if this flame begins to creep in on us, it may, my 
fellow citizens, creep in toward both coasts, and here are thousands 
upon thousands of miles of coast. Do you know that the great sweep 
from the canal up the coast to Alaska is something like half the cir- 
cumference of the world? Do vou remember the great reaches of 
sea from the canal up to the St. Lawrence River? Do you know the 
bays, the inviting harbors, the great cities which cluster upon those 
coasts? And do you think that a Navy that ranks only fourth in the 
world in force is enough to defend the coasts and make secure the 
territorv of a great continent like this? 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 50 

Wo have been interested in our Navy for a creat many years, and 
we have been slowly buil(lin<i; it up to excellent force, but we have 
done it piecemeal and a little at a time. 'J'liere has been :i party 
in Con«»:ress that was for a little Navy, as well as a party in Con- 
gress that was for a bi^ ^^lavy, and it seemed to me a sort of 
theoretical situation as to whether we wanted a Navy to be proud of 
or not. No nation oii;;ht to wish either an Army or Navy to be jiioud 
of, to make a disiday with, to make a toy of. It is the arm of force 
which nmst lie back of every sovereignty in the world, and the Navy 
of the United States must now be as rapidly as possible brought to a 
state of eflicieney and of numerical strength which will make it 
practically' impregnal)le to the navies of the world. The lighting 
force of the Navy now is si)lendid, and I should expect very great 
achievements from the line oIKcers and trained men that constituttt 
it, but it is not big enough; it is not numerous enough; it is in- 
complete. It must be completed, and what the present administra- 
tion is proposing is that we limit the number of years to five within 
which we shall complete a definite program Avhich will make that 
Navy adequate for the defense of both coasts. 

But, on land Avhat stands behind the President, if he shoidd have 
to act in your behalf to enforce the demands of the United States for 
respect and right? An Army so small that I have not had men 
enough to patrol the Mexican border. The Mexican border is a very 
long border, I admit; it runs the whole southern length of Texas 
and the whole southern length of New Mexico and Arizona besides, 
and that is a great strip of noble territory. But what is that single 
border to the whole extent and coast of the United States? I have 
not had men enough to prevent bandits from raiding across the 
border of Mexico into the United States. It has been a very mortify- 
ing circumstance indeed. I have been tempted to advise Congress to 
help Texas build up its little force of Texas Bangers; and nov/, if 
you please, because I am asking the Congress to give the Government 
an Army adequate to the uses of peace, to the uses of the moment, 
some gentlemen go about and prate of military estal)lishments. They 
see phantoms, they dream dreams. Militarism in the United States 
springing out of any of the proposals of this administration is, — why, 
a man must have a very strong imagination indeed to conceive any 
such nonsense as that ! I am not asking, the administration is not 
asking, to be backed by any bigger standing Army than is necessary 
for the uses of the moment, but it is asking this : 

Do you remember the experiences of the Spanish-American war? 
That Avas not much of a war, was it? It did not last very long. 
You remember the satirical verses that some newspaper man wrote 
about it — 

War is rude and impolite. 

It quite upsets a nation; 
It's made of several weeks of fi^bt, 

And yeais of conversation. 

A war which was parodied in verse! What happened? You .sent 
thousands of men to their death because they were ignorant. They did 
not get any farther than the camps in Florida. They did not get on 
the water even, much less get to Cuba, and they died in the camps like 
flies, of all sorts of camp diseases, of all sorts of diseases that come 
from the ignorance of medical science and camp sanitatitMi. Splendid 
boj's, boys lit, with a little training, to make an invincible army, but 



go ADDRESSES OP PRESIDENT WILSON. 

sent to their death by miserable disease, the soil of which was igno- 
rance, helpless ignorance. Why, the percentage of our loss in that 
war by disease in the camp was greater than the percentage of the 
loss of the Japanese by disease and battle together in their war with 
Enssia. . 

It is a very mortifying thing. There is not any place m the world 
where medical science is more nobly studied or more adequately ap- 
plied than in the United States, but we poured crude, ignorant, un- 
trained bovs into the ranks of those armies and they died before 
they got .sight of an enemy. Do you want to repeat that ? And 
while that is going on what may happen? What sort of disaster 
may come to you while you are trying to make an army out of abso- 
lutely raw msiterial? Why, it seems almost ridiculous to state how 
little the present administration is asking for. It is asking that you 
give it something that is not mere raw material out of which to 
begin to make an army when it is absolutely necessary to make an 
army. It is asking that five hundred thousand men be asked to vol- 
unteer to take a little training every year for three years, not more 
than two or three months out of the year, in order that when vol- 
unteers are called for in the case of war we may have men, at least 
five hundred thousand of them, who know something about the use 
of arms, something about the sanitation of camps, something about 
the organization and discipline of war in the field and in the trenches. 
That is all that we are asking for at the present time, and if there 
is any criticism to be made upon it, it is that it is too little, not too 

There are men in Congress asking, '' Can you get the five hundred 
thousand men? Will they volunteer?" Why, I believe you could 
get them out of any one State in the Union. You could almost get 
five thousand of them out of this audience. But. ladies and gentle- 
men, do not forget that that is not all there is to this problem. Sup- 
pose that I knew that back of the insistence of the United States 
upon its rights was a great navy that ranked first in the world and 
a body of men trained to arms adequate, at any rate, to fend off any 
initial disaster to the United States while we were making a greater 
army ready. That would be only the beginning. There are other thmgs 
that Ave have been very much*^ concerned about in Washington and 
that we are taking steps to attend to. The railroads of this coun- 
try have never been drawn into the counsels of the Government, 
never until recently, in such fashion as to make plans for coordi- 
nating all of them,'^to transport troops and transport provisions and 
transport munitions in such a w^ay as to be the effective arteries of 
the red blood and energy of the Nation ; never until recently, though 
w^e are now beginning to do it, for we called the business men and the 
engineers of the country into counsel to say, " What are the resources 
of" manufacture in this country, and how can w^e coordinate them 
and i)ut them into cooperation, "so that there will be no waste of time, 
no duplication of effort, and no failure to get every part of the 
machinery into operation should we need to use them in times of 
war?" We are taking counsel Avith regard to that now; but. mark 
vou, the munitions of war are made in this country almost exclusively 
iiear the borders of the country, and for the most part upon the 
Atlantic seaboard, and any initial disaster to the force of the United 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 61 

States might put the p^reatoi- part of them, if not all of them, in the 
possession of an encMny. So that yon see the circle of my arjiument 
leads i-iiiht i)ack to the necessity for a force of men who can prevent 
an initial disaster, so that there will he no liist failiiie. no lirst inva- 
sion, no lirst disaster. 

Did yo\i ever hear more momentons thiiiiis spoken of than these? 
Did it ever before occur to ycui that yon nnist put more than the 
authority of words into the mouths of tiic men who speak for you [ I 
have been wrin<T:in<i: my heart and strainin<j; every ener<ry of mind 
that I have to preserve the honor and intejxrity and peace of the 
United States, but think of what nuist lie at the back of my thoufjht. 
1 know what you want me to do. I would be ashamed if I did not 
use the utmost powers that are in me to do it. But suppose that 
some morninir I should have to turn to you and say, '" Fellow citi/.ens, 
I have done as nnich as I can; now I nnist ask you to back me up 
with the force of the Nation." And supi)Ose that I should know be- 
fore I said it that I had not told you what that meant, as I am tellinf^ 
you to-nicfht. SujDpose that I had not warned you of what was in- 
volved. Suppose that I had not challenged you in a moment of peace 
to make ready. Do not suppose, however, that I am afraid that it 
is not going to be done. I would not do the injustice that that impli- 
cation would involve to the gallant men ui)on the Hill yonder in 
Washington who make the laws of the Nation. They are going to 
do a good deal of debating, but they are going to deliver the goods. 
Do not misunderstand me; I do not mean that I can oblige them to 
deliver the goods; they are going to deliver the goods because 3H)U 
want them delivered. 

I am a believer not only in some of the men who talk, though not 
all of them, but also in that vast body of my fellow citizens who do 
not do any talking. . I would a great deal rather listen to the still, 
small voice that comes out of the great body of the Nation than to 
all the vocal orators in the land. But there are times when I nuist 
come out and say, " Do not let the voice be too small and too still "; 
when I must come out and say, " Fellow citizens, get up on your hind 
legs and talk and tell the people who represent you, wherever they 
are — in your State Capital or in your National Capital — what it is 
that the Nation desires and demands." The thing tliat everybody is 
listening for in a democracy is the tramp, tramp, tramp of the facts 
and the people. 

Did you ever realize what the force of a democracy is? May I 
give you a small, whimsical example? A cynical English writer 
once said that the problem in every nation was how. out of a multi- 
tude of knaves, to make an honest ])eople. Now, I, for my part, 
deny utterh^ that any nation is a multitude of knaves, but if it were a 
multitude of knaves as numerous as the people of the United States, 
you could make an honest nation out of them in this way: They are 
not all selfishly interested in the same things at the same time; they 
are going to take care of each other and neutralize each other and in- 
spire one another. Suppose that an audience as great as this sur- 
rounded, let us sa}', a football field, too far away from the field to 
hear anything that was said out in the middle of the field itself; 
and suppose two men, dressed in the ordinary street dress and not 
expected to pummel each other as the players perhaps are, should 



62 ADDEESSES OP PEESIDENT WILSON.' 

come out before the players and, standing in the sight of that great 
multitude, should suddenly fall to blows. You know what would 
liappen. A great outcry would be raised, "Put them out! Put 
them out!" and there would be universal indignation that they 
should have so lost their self-possession and forgotten their decency. 
Now, what happened? Perhaps one of those men said to the other 
something that nobody would allow another man to say to him 
without hitting him. Perhaps there was not a man in the whole body 
of the audience who would not have struck the first blo^y upon the 
same provocation. But it was not his provocation. He did not hear 
what was said; if he did, it was not addressed to him, and he is 
cool while they are hot. 

Now, that is the way to answer the Englishman's cynical question. 
This country is so vast, its interests are so various, there are so many 
competing interests in it, that, while any body of citizens is hot, the 
vast majority are cool, and the vast majority are going to sit in judg- 
ment on the minority and tell them they have got to keep their 
lieads and decide the quarrel in decent fashion. That is the way a 
democracy works. AVe are all of us fit to be judges about what is 
i.one of our business, and that is the way that great bodies of men 
come to the most cool-headed judgments. Their passions are not 
involved, their special interests are not involved; they are looking 
at the thing with a certain remove, with a certain aloofness of, judg- 
ment. 

I am anxious, therefore, my fellow citizens, that you should look at 
the hot stuff of war before you touch it; that you should be cool ; that 
you should apply your hard business sense to the proposition, " Shall 
we be caught unawares and do a scientific job like tyros and igno- 
ramuses? Or shall we be ready? Shall we know how to do it, and 
when it is necessary to do it; shall we do it to the queen's taste?" I 
Imow what the answer of America is, but I want it to be 
unmistakably uttered, and I want it to be uttered now. Be- 
cause, speaking with all solemnity, I assure you that there is not a 
day to be lost ; not, understand me, because of any new or specially 
critical matter, but because I can not tell 24 bourse at a time 
whether there is going to be trouble or not. And whether there is or 
not does not depend upon what I do or what I say, or upon what any 
man in the United States does or says. It depends upon what for- 
eign governments do; what the commanders of shii:)s at sea do; what 
those in charge of submarines do; what those who are conducting 
blockades do.' Upon the judgment of a score of men, big and little, 
hang the vital issues of peace or war for the United States. 

This month should not go by without something decisive done by 
the people of the United States bv way of pre])aration of the arms 
of self-vindication and defence. My heart burns Avithin me, my fel- 
low citizens, when I think of the importance of this matter and of all 
that is involved. I am sorry that there should be anybody in the 
United States who goes about crying out for war. There are 
such men, but they are irresponsible men, who do a great deal 
of talking, and they are appealing to some of the most funda- 
mental and dangerous passions of the human heart. And yet 
they are appealing, it must also be said, to some of the handsomest 
passions of the human heart. If I see somebody suffering, suffer- 
iiiiT cruollv. suffering unjustly, and believe that by the exercise 



ADDRESSKS OF PRESIDENT WILSON. G3 

of iovco oil my pnrt I can stop the siiiTerin*;. it is not :i low but 
an oxaltod i);issi()n which leads nic to wish to ^o in and lu'li). 
And thoio arc men in this conntry, I'nen by the thonsaiid. who believe 
that we on«iht to intei'vene to sto]) the intoleral)Ie siilieiiiiLr which is 
involved in some of the i)rocesses of this tenil)le war. ) et 1. for 
my ])art, am so convinced that we can help bettei- by keepin<^()nt of 
the war, by jrivini? our linancial resouices to the nse of the injured 
world, by aivinir our cotton and our woolen stull's to ch^thc the world ; 
I am so convinced that tlie processes of peace are even now the helpful 
and healin«i and redeeming: forces that I do not see how any man can 
think that by adding to the number of guns you can decrease the 
suil'ering or the tragedy of the world. 

There is tragedy abroad in the world, my fellow citizens. "We in 
these j^eacefuTareas of this blessed country go about our daily tasks 
unuK^lested and nnafraid. It seems very strange that this tragedy 
should be enacted while Ave lie so still and peaceful in our own 
abocles, but the world has never before in the history of mankind 
seen war upon such a scale, seen war Avith so many terrible features, 
seen the sweep of destruction comparable to that which is now 
devastating the fields of Europe. AVe think our own Civil War 
one of the bloodiest wars in history, but all the suffering of all the 
four years of that war are as dust in the balance as compared to the 
losses and sufferings and sacrifices which arc being witnessed in 
Euro])e and upon the seas to-day. We are witnessing a cataclysm, 
and God only Imows what the issue will be. 

See, therefore, the noble part that is assigned to America,— to 
stand steady, to stand cool, to keep alive all the w-holesome processes 
of peace, — ^^and we who are trustees to repair the world when th© 
damage is done must take counsel with one another how w'e shall 
see to it that w^e shall not be prevented from the efficacious per- 
formance of that task. I would not condescend to appeal to your 
passions. I would be ashamed of myself if I tried to do anything 
but quiet your judgments. I do not wish you to be any more excited 
than I am. I am too solemn to be excited. I would not draw a 
passionate breatli for fear I might disturb the nice equipoise of the 
peace of this part of the world. But, ladies and gentlemen, one can- 
not help seeing visions, one cannot help realizing wdiat it means to 
stand for the honor of a great nation like this. You little realize 
the feeling that it gives me Avhen I see those little flags lifted in 
the air. and know that every one of them is a sj'mbol of the solemn 
duty laid upon those selected to represent you in the counsels of the 
world. And I have come in all solemnity to ask you to sustain the 
judizment of those who represent you in applying the means, the 
necessary means, the onl}' means which will make it certain that 
those great interests may be conserved and cared for. 

I am going away from here reassured beyond even the hope that 
I entertained when I came here; and yet I want to beg of you that 
you do not let the impressions of this hour die with the hour. Let 
every man and woman in this place go out of here with the feeling 
that he must concentrate his influence from this nioment until the 
thing is accomplished upon making certain the sccurit}' and adequacy 
of national defence. Because, if America suffer, all the world loses 
its equipoise. Madness has entered into everything, and that serene 
Hag which we have thrown to the breeze upon so many occasions 



64 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

as the beckoning finger of hope to tliose who believe in the rights 
of mankind will itself be stained with the blood of battle, and stag- 
gering here and there among its foes will lead men to wonder where 
the star of America has gone and why America has allowed herself 
to be embroiled when she might have carried that standard serenely 
forward to the redemption of the affairs of mankind. I beg of you 
to stand by your Government with your minds as well as your hearts, 
and let us redeem America by applying our judgments to the whole- 
some process of national defence. 



COLISEUM, ST. LOUIS, MO., FEBRUARY 3, 1916. 

Mr. Chairman and Fellow Citizens: I came into the Middle 
West to find something, and I found it. I was told in Washington 
that the Middle West had a different feeling from the i)oi-tions of 
the country that lie upon either coast, and that it was indifferent to 
the question of preparation for national defence. I kneAv enough of 
the Middle West of this great continent to know that the men who 
said that did not know what they were talking about. I knew the 
spirit of America to dwell as much in this great section of the country 
as in any other section of it, and I kncAv that the men of these parts 
loved the honor and safety of America as much as Americans every- 
Avhere love it and are ready to stand by it. I did not come out to 
find out how you felt or wliat you thought, but to tell you what was 
going on. I 'came out in order that there might be an absolute 
clarification of the issues which are involved in the questions imme- 
diately confronting us, because I, for one, have an absolute faith iii 
the readiness of America to act upon the facts just as soon as America 
knows what the facts are. 

The facts are very easily and briefly stated. What is the situation i 
The situation is that America is at peace with all the world and 
desires to remain at peace with all the world. And it is not a shallow 
peace; it is a genuine peace, based upon some of the most fundamental 
influences of international intercourse. Amei-ica is at peace Avith 
all the world because she entertains a real friendship for all the 
nations of the world. It is not, as some have mistakenly supposed, 
a peace based upon self-interest. It is a peace based upon some of 
the most generous sentiments that characterize the human heart. 

You know, my fellow ctizens, that this Nation is a composite 
Nation. It lias a genuine friendshi]) for all the nations of the world 
because it is drawn from all the nations of the world. The blood 
of all the great national stocks runs, and runs red and strong, in the 
veins of America, and America understands what the genuine ties 
of friendship and affection are. It would tear the heartstrings of 
America to be at war Avith any of the great nations of the world. 
Our peace is not a superficial peace. Our peace is not based upon 
the mere conveniences of our national life. If great issues Avcre in- 
volved Avhich it Avas our honorable obligation to defend, Ave should 
not be at peace, but Avould plunge into any struggle that Avas 
necessary in order to defend the honor and integrity of the Nation ; 
but Ave belive, mv fellow citizens, that Ave can show our friendship 
tor the Avorld and our devotion to the principles of humanity better 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 00 

and more effectively by kcepin£>; out of this strun^gle than by getting 
into it. 

I do not misread the heart of this great country. The heart of this 
great coiiutry is sound, and it is made up of those fundr.inental prin- 
ciples of human sympathy which move all uiankind wjicn they are 
permitted free scope and are not interfered with by the politics of 
groups of uien and the suggestions of those who do not represent the 
people themselves. I have no indictment against any forui of govern- 
ment, but I do believe in my heart that the world has never witnessed 
a case, and never will witness a case, where one i)enple desired to 
make war upon another people, and I believe that the security of 
America rests in the fact that no man is the master of America; 
that no man can lead America any whither that her people do not de- 
sire to be led. I believe it to be my duty, whatever my individual 
opinions might be, whatever my individual sympathies, whatever my 
individual pt)ints of view, to subordinate everything to the consci- 
entious attempt to interpret and express in the international affairs 
of tile world the genuine spirit of my fellow citizens. 

So far as America is concerned no num need go about amongst us 
preaching peace. We are disciples of peace already, and no man need 
preach that gospel auiongst us. I, ni my individual capacity, am 
also a disciple of domestic peace and security; but, suppose that 
my neighbor's house is on fire and my roof is of combustible shingles, 
is it my fault if the fire eats into the wood, if the flames leap from 
tiuiber to timber? Is it my fault, because I love peace and security, 
that my doors are battered in and reckless men make light of the 
peace and security of my house? The danger is not froui within, 
gentlemen ; it is from without, and I am bound to tell you that that 
danger is constant and immediate, not because anything new has 
hai)pened, not because there has been any change in our international 
relationships within recent weeks or months, but becanse the danger 
comes with every turn of events. Why. gentlemen, the commanders 
of subuiarines have their instructions, and those instructions are con- 
sistent for the most i)art with the law of nations, but one reckless 
commander of a submarine, choosing to put his private interpreta- 
tion upon what his governuient wishes him to do, might set the 
world on fire. There are not only governments to deal with, but the 
servants of governments; there are not only the contacts of politics, 
but also those infinitely varied contacts which come from the mere 
movement of mankind, the quiet processes of the everyday world. 
There are cargoes of cotton on the seas; there are cargoes of wheat 
on the seas; thei-e are cargoes of manufactured articles on the seas; 
anfl every one of those cargoes may be the point of ignition, 
because every cargo goes into the field of fire, goes \Yhere there are 
flames which no num can control. 

1 know the spirit of America to be this: We respect other nations, 
and absolutely respect their rights so long as they respect our rights. 
We do not claim anything for ourselves which they would not in 
like circumstances claim for themselves. Every statement of right 
that we have made is grounded upon the previous utterances of their 
own public men and their own judges. There is no dispute about the 
rights of nations under the understandings of international law. 
Ainerica has drawn no fine points. America lias raised no novel 



66 ADDRESSES OP PRESIDENT WILSON. 

issue. America has merely asserted the rights of her citizens and 
her Government upon what is written pUiin upon all the documents 
of international intercourse. Therefore America is not selfish in 
claiming; her rights; she is merely standing for the rights of man- 
kind when the'^life of mankind is being disturbed by an unprece- 
dented war between the greatest nations of the world. Some of these 
days we shall be able to call the statesmen of the older nations to 
witness that it was we who kept the quiet flame of international 
principle burning upon its altars while the winds of passion were 
sweeping every other altar in the world. Some of these days they 
will look bacU'with gratification upon the steadfast allegiance of the 
United States to those principles of action which every man loves 
when his temper is not upset and his judgment not disturbed. 

I am ready to make every patient allowance for men caught in the 
storm of national struggle. I am not in a critical frame of mind. 
i am ready to yield everything but the absolute final essential right, 
because I 'know how my heart would burn, I know how my mind 
would be in a whirl if America were engaged in what seemed a 
death grapple. I know how I would be inclined to sweep aside the 
minor Tmpediments of the ordinary transactions of government, and 
how I would be inclined to say to myself : " Why, we are fighting 
for our lives, and we are not going to be punctilious as to how we 
are fighting for our lives. Punctilio has nothing to do with it." 
i am ''ready to make every allowance for both sides, for, having 
pledo-ed myself, as .your chairman has reminded you, to maintain. 
If itte possible for me to maintain, the peace of the United States. I 
have thereby pledged mvself to think as far as possible from the 
point of view of the other side as well as from the point of view of 
America. I want the record of the conduct of this administration 
to be a record of genuine neutrality and not of pretended neutrality. 

You know the circumstances of the time. You know how one 
group of belligerents is practically shut off by circumstances over 
which we have no control from the ordinary commerce of the 
world. You know, therefore, how the spirit of America has not 
been able to express itself adequately in both directions. But I 
believe that the people of America are genuinely neutral. I believe 
that their desire is to stand in unprejudiced judgment upon what 
is <roino- on; not that they would arrogate to themselves the right to 
utt'er rebuking judgment upon any nation, but that they are holdmg 
themselves off to assist neither side in what is wrong, and to counte- 
nance both sides in what they are doing for the legitimate defense of 

their national honor. „ . . ^ n 

The fortunate circumstance of America, my fellow countrymen, 
is that it desires nothing but a free field and no favor. Our security 
is in the puritv of our motives. The minute we get an impure 
motive we are going to deserve to be insecure. The minute we de- 
sii-e what we have no right to, then we are going to get into trouble 
and ought to set into trouble. But, my fellow citizens, while we 
know cur own'hearts and know our own desires, it does not tollow 
that other nations and other eovernments understand our purpose 
and our principle of action. These are days of infinite prejudice 
and passion, because they are days of war. It is said by an old 
maxim that amidst war the law is silent. It is also true that amidst 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 67 

war tho iiid^moni; is silent. Men press forward towards their object 
with a certain dejijree of blind recklessness, and they arc apt to excito 
their passion particularly ajiainst those who in any way stand in their 
wav. Therefoie, this is the situation that I have come to remind 
you of, for you need merely to have it stated to see it: The peace 
of tlie world, includinfz; America, depends upon the aroused passion 
of other nations and not upon the motives of the United States. It 
is foi- that reason that I have come to call you to a consciousness of 
the necessity for i)reparin^ this country for anything; that may 
hajipen. 

llere is the choice, and I do not see how any i)rudent man could 
doubt which side of the alternative to take: Either we shall stand 
still and wait for the necessity for immediate national defence to 
come and then call for raw volunteers who for the first few months 
would be imi)otent as aijainst a trained and experienced enemy, or 
we shall adopt the ancient American principle that the men of the 
country shall immediately be made ready to take care of their own 
Government. Vou have either fjjot to make the men of this Nation 
in sufficient number ready to defend the Nation acainst initial disas- 
ter, or vou have got to take the risk of initial disaster. Think of 
the cruelty, think of the stupidity, of putting raw levies of inexperi- 
enced men into the modern field of battle! We are not asking for 
armies; we are asking for a trained citizenship which will act in the 
spirit of citizenship and not in the spirit of military establishments. 
If anybody is afraid of a trained citizenship in America he is afraid 
also of the spirit of America itself. I do not want to command a 
great army under the authority granted me b5^ the Constitution to be 
Commantler in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States; 
I want to command the confidence and support of my fellow citizens. 
Of course you will back me up and come to my assistance if I need 
you, but will you come knowing what you are about, or will yon not? 
Will you come knowing the character of the arms that you carry in 
your hands, knowing something of the discipline of organization, 
"knowing something of how to take care of yourselves in camp, know- 
ing something of all those things that it is necessai-y to know so as 
not to thiow human life away? It is handsome, my fellow citizens, 
to sacriiice human life intelligently for something greater than life 
itself, but it is not handsome for any cause whatever to throw human 
life away. 

The plans now laid before the Congress of the United States are 
merely plans not to throw the life of American youth away. Those 
plans are going to be adopted. I am not jealous and you are not 
jealous of the details; no man ought to be confident that his judgment 
is correct about the details: no man ought to say to anv legislative 
body, "You must take my plan or none at all"' — that is arrogance 
and stuj)idity— but we have the right to insist, and I believe tliat it 
will not be necessary to insist, that we get the es.sential thing; that 
is to say, a principle, a system, by which we can secure a trained 
citizenship, so that if it becomes neces.sary to defend the Nation the 
first line of defence on land will be an adequate and intelligent line 
of defence. 

I say "on land'' because America apparently has never been 
jealous of armed men if they are only at sea. America also knows 



(58 ADDRESSES OP PEESIDENT WILSON. 

that you can not send volunteers to sea unless you want to send them 
to tlie bottom. The modem fighting ship, the modern submarine, 
every instrument of modern naval warfare must be handled by ex- 
perts. America has never debated or disputed that proposition, and 
all that we are asking for now is that a sufficient number of experts 
and a sufficient number of vessels be at our disposal. The vessels we 
•have are manned by experts. There is not a better service in the 
world than that of the American Navy. But no matter how skilled 
and capable the officers or devoted the men, they must have ships 
enough, and we are going to give them shi])s enough. We have been 
doing it slowly and leisurely and good-naturedly, as we are accus- 
tomed to do everything in times of iDeace, but now we must get down 
to business and do it systematically. We must lay do\yn a pro- 
gramme and then steadfastly carry it out and complete it. There 
are no novelties about the programine. All the lines of it are the lines 
already established, only drawn out to their legitimate conclusion, 
and dravvn out so that "they will be completed within a calculable 
length of time. Do you realize the task of the Navy? Have you 
ever let your imagination dwell upon the enormous stretch of coast 
from the Canal to Alaska,— from the Canal to the northern corner 
of jNIaine? There is no other navy in the world that has to coyer so 
great an area of defense as the American Navy, and it ought, in my 
J'udgment, to be incomparably the most adequate navy in the world. 

As I say, you have never been jealous of armed force at sea ; you 
have been jealous of armed force en land; and I must say that I 
share with you the jealousy of a great military establishment. But 
I never have shared any prejudice against putting arms in the hands 
of trained citizens whose interest is to defend their own homes and 
their own securitv, and not to serve any political purpose whatever. 
There is no politics in national defense, ladies and gentlemen. I 
would be sorry to see men of different parties differ about anything 
but the details of this great question; and I do not anticipate any es- 
sential differences. Some men do not see anything. Some men look 
straight in the face of the facts and see ncthing but atmospheric air. 
Some men are so hopelessly and contentedly provincial that they can 
not seen the rest of the world; but they do not constitute a large or 
influential minority even. You must listen to them with indulgence, 
and then absf)lutelv ignore them. They have a right to talk, but they 
have no right to affect our conduct. Indeed, if I were in your place 
1 would encourage them to talk. Nothing chills folly like exposure 
to the air, and these gentlemen ought to be encouraged to hire large 
halls, and the more people they can get to hear them the safer the 
country will be. 

The'judgment of America is a very hard-headed ]udgment. The 
judgment oi America is not based upon sentiment; it is based upon 
"fac£, and I want to say to you that nothing has encouraged me 
more upon this trip that' I have been making than the consciousness 
that America is awake to the facts. I do not want to say anytliing 
disrespectful about any newspajier. l)ut it is astonishing how little 
some newspaper editors know, nnd T would like from some of them 
a candid expression of the impression they have got from what has 
happened since T left Wnshinf>ton. Thev nrobablv will give it their 
own interpretation, but they will not (and this ought to comfort them 



ADDRESSES OP PRESIDENT WILSON. G9 

if tlioy are inoi-al mon), tlu\v will not doccive iinyl'od}'. From the 
time i left Washin<;t()n until now 1 have just had this feelinj^: The 
country is up; there is not a man who is not awake; there is not a man 
who does not realize what the situation is and what we ought to do in 
order to meet the situation. 

Tiie strengtli of America is in that j^art of it which is not vocal. 
The voice of .\merica is a very still l)ut a very powerful voice. My 
constant endeavor in Washington is to hear that voice. I have often 
said that it has seemed to me a very fortunate circumstance that all 
the living rooms of the AA'hite House are on the side from which, if 
you look out of the windows, you can not see the city of Wash- 
ington. You see instead the broad spaces of Virginia across the 
river, and your imagination has free flight from those free spaces to 
those great stretches of country where the quiet peo]ile on the farms 
and the busy peo])le in the factories and the absorbed men in the 
ortices are r(>ali/Ji!g and living the life of America; and from out those 
great national areas the people seem to send in at those southei-n win- 
dows of the l^xecutive Mansion their message of reassurance. That is 
wheie T listen for the still voice of America, and I believe that that 
voice has brought to me in unmistaken accents the resolution of this 
country to do whatever it is ade(|uate and necessary to do in order 
that no man might question the honor or invade the integrity or 
disregard the rights of the United States of America. 



BUSINESS MEN'S LEAGUE OF ST. LOUIS, JEFFERSON HOTEL, 
FEBRUARY 3, 1916. 

Mr. CiiAiRMAK, Ladies, AND Gextij:men : I can not stand here with- 
out remembering the last time that I had the pleasure of standing in 
this spot. Your Civic League had paid me the compliment of supposing 
that I knew something about the government of cities, and I under- 
took at their invitation to be very instructive and to lead you in the 
way in which you should go with regard to a new- charter for the city 
of St. Louis. I hope that 3'ou have forgotten that speech. I say I 
hope that you have forgotten it because I had forgotten it myself 
until somebody unexpectedly produced a copy of it and cited opin- 
ions in it from some of which I had departed. It is just as well to 
shed your speeches as you go. 

As I think of the trip that I am now making my own chief regret 
about it is the number of speeches with wjiich I am expected to be 
loaded so that 1 can go olT at any time: and yet I am expected to 
speak exclusively of the preparation of the Xation for national de- 
fense, and, of course, I do that with a great deal of ardor and zest, 
because that is the most jiressing and immediate (|uestion ahead of us. 
One must (ii'st emi)liasi7e the things which admit of no delay, and yet 
thei-e are man}' things that I would like to talk to a company like this 
about. Not only is it necessary that we should i)rei>are, gentlemen, to 
mobilize the forces of the Nation if necessary for the defense of the 
country, — if it should, unhappily, become necessary to use them for 
that puri:)ose,— but it is also necessary to mobilize the economic forces 
of this country better than they have ever been mobilized before for 
the service of the world after this <rreat war is over. 



70 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

I am not looking forward to war; I am looking forward with the 
greatest ai'dor an<l interest to peace and to the services which this 
country may render the rest of the world in the times of peace and 
healing and restoration which will undoubtedly follow this great 
struggle. On the surface, gentlemen, there are many signs of bitterness 
andpassion, but only on the surface. Men who are in contest with 
one another can sometimes hate one another, but no great people ever 
hated another great people. I believe that underlying all the contests 
of the world there is a true instinct of friendship among tlie peoples of 
the world, provided that the contests are righteous contests based 
upon merit and efficiency and not based upon the seeking of unfair 
advantage. America will be infinitely efficient in the world of busi- 
ness if she is punctiliously righteous in the field of business, and it is 
with the greatest interest and hope that I have seen the many move- 
ments abroad in this country, movements which may be illustrated by 
one, though that not the chief one. 

You know how the advertising men of this country have banded 
themselves together to see that advertisements speak the truth. Now, 
that is an index of what is happening in America. We have upon 
some occasions cb-awn it a little strong with regard to our individual 
business; now we are beginning to realize that the real efficacy is in 
the facts as they are, because they are going to be uncovered sooner or 
later anyhow in the process of business. You can not sell a thing that 
is not what you represent it to be without your customers ultimately 
finding out that it is not what you represent it to be. So that even 
upon an instinct of preservation, if you put it upon no higher plane, 
you had better anticipate the facts when you see them coming and not 
get caught by them. The truth is stronger and mightier than any 
other influence in the world in the long run. 

America is now going to be called out into an international posi- 
tion such as she has never occupied before. For some reason that I 
have never imderstood, America has been shy about going out into 
the great field of international com]:)etition. She has sought by one 
process or another, incomprehensible to me as a policy, to shut her 
doors against matching the wits of America with the wits of the 
world. I am willing to match the business capacity and the moral 
strength of American business men with, and to back them, against 
all the world. 

AVe have left it until very recently to foreign corporations to conduct 
the greater part of the banking business in foreign bills of exchange. 
We have seemed to hold off from handling the very machinei-y by 
which we are to serve the rest of the world by our commerce and our 
industry. And nov.\ with the rest of the world impaired in its eco- 
nomic efficiency, it is necessary that we should put ourselves at the 
service of trade and finance in all parts of the world. That is one 
of the reasons, gentlemen, why we are trying— trying so ddigently; 
trying so patiently — to avoid being drawn into this great struggle 
now going on on" the other side of the sea. We must keep our 
resources and oui- thoughts and our strength untouched by that flame 
in oi-der that thev mav be in a condition to serve the restoration of 
the world, the healinir l^rocesses, the processes which will put the 
Avorld upon a footing of peace, which, in the providence of God, 
we all pray may last for many a generation after. The world will 



ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 71 

not endure, I believe, anotlier striigf^le like thai which is ^'oiii;,' (»ii 
now. It can not endiiie it. The heart of man can not stand it. 
And I believe that after this war is over we shall liave been set 
further foi'waid toward permanent jjcace than iieihaps any other 
pi'ocess would ha\e set us. Man is slow to leai'n; he has to have it 
bui-netl in; but when it is burned in the lesson is finally compre- 
hended. 

I believe that the message which all men such as sit in this room 
to-day ought to carry at their hearts is the inessaji:e of pi-eparation 
for peace. UnhapjMly, you have to tread another way to apjjroach 
that jneparation. T^nhappily, the conditions of peace are not estab- 
lished by us but established by the rest of the world. We do not have 
to defend oui-selves against oui'selves; we may have to defend our- 
selves against the invasion of those processes of i)assion which are 
now shaking the whole round globe with their distiii-bance. ^Ve 
nnist be ready to see that America shall remain untouched, because 
America is too valuable to the world now to allow herself to be 
touched by this disturbance, --^ 

AN'hen we have settled this great question, as we shall presently 
settle it, of reasonable and rational and American preparation for 
national defense, then we shall talk about these other matters. Then 
we shall set our house in order. Then we shall see the facts and act 
upon the facts. That is the reason that some of us have had to 
change our minds about certain things, gentlemen. I have changed 
my mind, for example, about the advisability of having a tariff board, 
and I have done it for this rea.son : Before this war began and the 
universal sweep of economic change set in, I believed, and I think 
1 was justified in believing, that a tariff board was meant merely 
to keep alive the question of protection. Now the sweep of this 
change has been so universal that an unprejudiced, nonpartisan 
board is absolutely necessary in order to find how far and in what 
way the facts have been changed. Because we can not pretend that 
any man now living can predict or foresee or guide the policy of the 
L^nitcd States with regaixl to her legislation in economic matters. Vv'e 
need the facts, and we need them from the most unprejudiced and 
undistui'bed quarters that we can get them from. 

Personally I look forward to the establishment of a tariff board 
with some misgivings, because I will have to choose the men that make 
it: and I tell you that men without prepossessions are hard to find, 
and when you find them they are generally empty of everything else. 
Gentlemen who have not done a lot of thinking and formed some very 
c;efinite convictions are not very serviceable in public alFairs; and, 
knowing that I have my due quota of prejudices and prepossessions 
myself and that I hold even my untested convictions in Hghting spirit, 
I am not sure that I would be a suitable member of a tarilf board. Yet 
I shall have to choose suitable members for a tariff board, for I feel 
great confidence that we shall have one, and I want the best counsel I 
can get; I want the best guidance I can get in the choosing of the men 
who shall make it u]i. If I make mistakes, they will not be mistakes 
of intention but mistakes of lack of information. It is very interest- 
ing how important men feel after they get put on a Fe(leral bo:ird. 
They are thereafter hardly approachable. They are jealous of ncjth- 
ing so much as being spoken to too familiarly by the President, 



'72 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 

who seems to be regarded as some sort of suspicious political in- 
fluence. You do not know how interesting it is, gentlemen, to be 
regarded as tlie positive pole of a political battery, throwing out all 
sorts of electi-i tying influences which are supposed to be meant to in- 
crease the vitality of Democratic politics. I do not think that Demo- 
cratic politics needs any increase of vitality. 

You will see that 1 am merely uttering to j^ou the casual thought^ 
of an unprepared address, but it always stimidates me to say some of 
the things that are in my mind in face of a company like this. I have 
been in St. Louis so often and have always enjoyed my visits here 
so much, that I have had the pleasure of making a great many friends 
here. When I arrived in Kansas City the other day, the reception 
committee said, " Mr. President, this is your fifth visit here." " Yes," 
I said. " my fifth ^isit since you began counting." And I made a 
good many visits lo St. Louis before you began counting; sometimes 
merely as a Princeton man interested in the Princeton crowd, and 
sometimes upon purely private errands, but always with the renevved 
pleasure of meeting the substantial and thoughtful men who here 
vitalize the life of the business world of America. 

There is one thing, gentlemen, I want you to relieve yourselves of. 
and that is the suspicion that there is a Middle West as distinguished 
from the rest of America. As I say, I have sampled vour quality a 
great many times and I have never found your quality to be anything 
but thoroughly American, suitable for any part of the continent. 
The distance between you and the Pacific coast or the Atlantic coast 
is not a distance that segregates you or makes you different in sym- 
pathy and in impulse; on the contrary, standing somewhat nearer 
the middle of the continent than some other people, your horizon is 
the more symmetrical. 

I have come out to appeal to America, not because I doubted what 
America felt, but because I thought America wanted the satisfaction 
of uttering what she felt and of letting the whole world know that 
she was a unit in respect of every question of national dignity and 
national safety. 

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